
fiffpffiffl .-Wnpx 



COHWGHT DEPOSIT. 



*/6 £? 

3 r 







DOMH OF THE CAPITOL AT WASHINGTON. 



/ 



LIVES OF 

THE 



PRESIDENTS 



BY 

PRESCOTT HOLMES 

II 



With Portraits and Numerous Illustrations 



PHILADELPHIA 

HENRY ALTEMUi 
1898 

L • 



38747 



IN UNIFORM STYLE 



Copiously Illustrated 



the pilgrim s progress 

Alice's adventures in wonderland 

through the looking-glass & what alice found there 

robinson crusoe 

the child's story of the bible 

the child's life of christ 

lives of the presidents of the united states 

the swiss family robinson 

THE FABLES OF iESOP 

christopher columbus and the discovery of america 
mother goose's rhymes, jingles and fairy tales 
exploration and adventure in the frozen seas 
the story of discovery and exploration in africa 
Gulliver's travels 

ARABIAN NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS 

wood's NATURAL HISTORY 

A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, by CHARLES DICKENS 

BLACK BEAUTY, by ANNA SEWELL 

andersen's fairy tales 

grimm "s fairy tales 

grandfather's chair, by nathaniel hawthorne 

flower fables, by louisa m.- alcott 



Price 50 Cents Each 



Henry Altemus, Philadelphia 




Copyright 1S96 and 1S9S by Henry Altemus. 

utivt 

W WW 



PREFACE 



WE have here endeavored to acquaint young peo- 
ple with the story of the lives and attain- 
ments of the men who achieved the highest 
civic honor in the gift of the people; and to explain, 
in a necessarily brief narrative, the history of our 
political parties, the issues involved in their several 
contests, and their differing administrations. 

The youth of the present is the President of the 
future; and an intelligent understanding of the 
rights and duties of citizenship is an imperative 
feature of his education. He will perceive that 
honest differences of opinion have ever prevailed, 
and that most of these have been settled by judicious 
compromises under constitutional limitations. The 
slavery question submitted itself to the arbitration of 
the sword, and was worsted ; and the sin and stain 
of slavery was forever removed from our country. 

We have attempted to describe the things which 
have been accomplished in order that the young pa- 
triot may have the warning and the promise in the 
things yet to be done. At the cost of much blood 
and treasure is crystalized the Nation's motto, 
E Pliiribns Unutn. Let us hope and act so that it 
will be always "now, and forever." 

C5) 




THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE READ TO THE ARIvIY. 

(6) 



CONTENTS 



PAGE. 

George Washington 9 

John Adams 35 

Thomas Jefferson 46 

James Madison 67 

James Monroe 79 

John Quincy Adams 97 

Andrew Jackson 103 

Martin Van Buren 115 

William Henry Harrison 123 

John Tyler 125 

James K. Polk 135 

Zachary Taylor 144 

Millard Fillmore 155 

Franklin Pierce 157 

James Buchanan 165 

Abraham Lincoln 192 

Andrew Johnson • 207 

Ulysses S. Grant 215 

Rutherford B. Hayes 233 

James A. Garfield 241 

Chester A. Arthur 246 

Grover Cleveland . 254 

Benjamin Harrison . , . . 265 

William McKinley .....,••.... 269 

(7) 




WASHINGTON IN 1 772, AT THE AGE OF FORTY. 



LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 




GEORGE WASHINGTON— 1 789-1 797. 

Gkorgh Washington, the first President, was 
born in Virginia, February 22, 1732. His ancestors 
emigrated to Virginia in the time of Cromwell (1657). 
His father died when he was ten years old, leaving 

9 



10 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

a comfortable property to his mother and five chil- 
dren. She was a wise and prudent woman, and 
trained her family to be industrious and economical. 
His education was conducted partly by his mother 
and partly at one of the ordinary schools of the 
province. It was the usual middle-class education, 
but it included enough of mathematics to enable 
Washington to act as a land-surveyor. His boyhood 
showed many evidences of that methodical precision 
which was always one of his characteristics. He 
wrote a neat, stiff hand; he compiled "Rules of 
Behavior in Company and Conversation;" he sur- 
veyed the fields and plantations about the school 
where he was staying, and entered his measurements 
and calculations in a field-book with great exactness. 
In athletic exercises he was always foremost, and it 
was a favorite diversion of his to form his school- 
mates into companies, and engage them in sham 
fights. His ambition was to enter the navy; but his 
mother objected, and he began his work of land- 
surveying. At sixteen he was employed to examine 
the valleys of the Alleghany mountains — a task 
which was continued during the next three years, 
and performed with skill and completeness. It was 
no light or easy task, for the country was a wilder- 
ness, and the severities of the weather had no miti- 
gation in those wild passes and unsheltered glens. 
It was only for a few weeks at a time that he could 
endure this life of hardship and deprivation; but 
after an interval of rest and comfort, he would again 
seek the desert, carrying his instruments of science 
into the region of savage mountains, and the neigh- 
borhood of savage men. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. n 

When Washington was about nineteen, Virginia 
was divided into military districts, as a measure of 
protection against the advance of the French. Over 
each division an adjutant-general, with the rank of 
major, was appointed. Washington was commis- 
sioned to one of these districts, and set to work to 
study military tactics. He was so good a soldier 
two years later that, when the number of military 
divisions in Virginia was reduced to four, he was 
still left in command of one, and in this capacity 
had to train and instruct officers, to inspect men, 
arms, and accoutrements, and to establish a uniform 
system of manoeuvres. When he was twenty-one, he 
was doing the work of an experienced major-general; 
and was selected by Governor Dinwiddie for a service 
which demanded great skill as well as daring. He 
was required to make his way across a mountainous 
desert, inhabited by Indians whose friendship could 
hardly be depended on; to penetrate to the frontier 
stations of the French; and to bring back informa- 
tion concerning their position and military strength, 
together with an answer from the French com- 
mander as to why he had invaded the British domin- 
ions during a time of peace. The expedition was 
all the more onerous as winter was coining on. It 
was October 31, 1753, ere Washington started; it 
was the middle of November when, with an inter- 
preter, four attendants, and Christopher Gist as a 
guide, he followed an Indian trail into the dim 
mysteries of the unknown forest. The path took 
the little company into the wilderness, and carried 
them over deep ravines and swollen streams, made 
worse by the sleet and snow which then began to 



12 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

fall; and at length brought them, after a hurried 
ride of nine days, to the fork of the Ohio, where 
the quick glance of Washington saw the fine capa- 
bilities for planting a great commercial city, now 
Cincinnati. 

The party swam their horses across the Alleghany, 
and slept that night on the bank of the river. Next 
morning the chief of the Delawares led them through 
an open country to the valley of Logstown, where 
they were cordially received by the Indians, with 
whom they planned a series of operations against 
the French, in the event of the latter still refusing 
to quit the country. Accompanied by several of the 
natives, Washington and his friends again set for- 
ward, and reached the French post, where the officers 
avowed their resolve to take possession of the Ohio. 
They boasted of their forts at Le Bceuf, Erie, Niag- 
ara, Toronto, and Frontenac, and said that the 
English would be unable, though two to one, to 
prevent any enterprise of the French. From this 
point, the Virginian envoys made their way, across 
creeks so swollen by the rains as to be passable only 
over felled trees, towards the fort of Le Bceuf, situ- 
ated at Waterford. Rain and snow fell; they were 
often engulfed in miry swamps, and were forced to 
kill bucks and bears for their sustenance. On 
gaining Fort Le Bceuf, they found it surrounded by 
the rough, log-built barracks of the soldiers. In 
front lay 50 birch-bark canoes, and 170 boats of pine, 
ready for the descent of the river; while, close by, 
materials were collected for building more. The 
commander of the fort was a man of great courage, 
of large experience, and of so much integrity that 



,4$, ^m^M^ 

I 




WASHINGTON PLANTING THE BRITISH FI,AG AT FORT DUQUESNE. 

13 



14 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

he was at once feared and beloved by the savages. 
He refused to discuss with young Washington 
the abstract question of right. He had been placed 
there by his chief, and would execute the orders he 
had received. To the letter from Didwiddie which 
Washington delivered, requiring the evacuation of 
the place, he replied by a direct refusal, and an inti- 
mation of his purpose to seize every Englishman 
within the Ohio Valley. Having executed his com- 
mission, Washington, with his companions, turned 
homeward. The return was worse than the journey 
out; for it was now the depth of winter, and having 
to cross many creeks and small rivers, they suffered 
severely from the rigor of the season. Once, a canoe 
which they now had with them was driven against 
the rocks; at other times they were obliged to carry 
it across the half- frozen stream; often they waded 
through water which froze upon their clothes. Snow 
fell heavily, and a bitter frost set in. Washington 
and Gist separated from the others, and struck across 
the open country towards the fork of the Ohio, steer- 
ing their way by the compass. But the deadly cold 
was not the only peril they had to face. Hostile 
Indians lay in wait for the travelers, and one fired 
at Washington as he passed. The Alleghany was 
crossed on a raft laboriously made out of trees which 
they had first to fell. The passage of the river was 
made difficult and dangerous by floating ice, and 
Washington, in mancevering the raft, was thrown 
into the benumbing current. He and his compan- 
ion got to a small island, and passed the night there; 
in the morning the river was entirely frozen over, 
and they crossed on foot. On January 16, 1754, 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. I5 

Washington again found himself at the Virginia 
capital. The journal of his expedition, which was 
published shortly afterwards, gave a very high idea 
of his sagacity, self-reliance, and powers of observa- 
tion ; and his minute description of the fort which 
lie had visited — of its form, size, construction, and 
number of cannon — advanced his reputation as a 
military critic. That winter's journey had brought 
a new actor on the stage of the world. 

Dinwiddie attempted to force the French from the 
ground claimed by the English. Two companies 
were raised, and put under Washington's command 
with orders u to drive away, kill, and destroy, or seize 
as prisoners all persons, not the subjects of Great 
Britain, who should attempt to take possession of the 
lands on the Ohio River, or any of its tributaries." 
This expedition failed; the forces being too few and 
too poor to succeed. Thus the first important opera- 
tion of a British army upon American soil ended in 
disgrace and ruin. Yet they did some good fighting, 
and Washington gained great honor for his wise 
actions and bravery. But Dinwiddie treated him so 
disrespectfully that he resigned. He was soon in- 
vited to become an aide to General Braddock, who 
was appointed by the King to take charge of all the 
forces then in the field. 

When they set out toward Fort Duquesne with 
3000 men — British regulars and Colonial troops — 
Braddock expected to find the French and Indians 
drawn up in regular lines in an open field, and he 
thought that he would only need to make a bold 
attack and they would all run. Washington told 
him that Indians fought by hiding behind trees and 



l6 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

lying in wait in unexpected places, and he cautioned 
the English general to send out scouts in advance of 
the troops. But Braddock would not listen ; on the 
contrary he exhibited towards him the most un- 
reasoning obstinacy and most irascible temper. He 
knew more about fighting than this young colonial 
captain could tell him — until the Indians fell upon his 
ranks just as Washington predicted, sending bullets 
thick and fast into them, while the amazed Britishers 
saw nothing but trees at which to return fire. Many 
of the officers fell ; Braddock himself was wounded, 
and Washington had to take command, and con- 
ducted the retreat in a masterly manner. He met 
the foe with their own weapons ; he scattered his 
men among the trees ; he rode here and there giving 
orders ; two horses were shot from under him, and 
four bullets passed through his coat, but he was not 
harmed. He checked the advance of the French and 
Indians, but not until nearly half of the English 
troops had been killed. 

This affair showed the British Government what 
Washington could do, and when a new force was 
raised he was put in command of 2000 men ; but 
feeling deeply repulsed by the condition of the army, 
he resigned after the capture of Fort Duquesne in 
November, 1758. 

The next year he married a rich and beautiful 
widow, Mrs. Martha Custis ; she, with her two chil- 
dren, he took to his family mansion at Mount Vernon. 
He took no part in military life now, but attended to 
his large estates. 

Thus at 27, we find Washington a country gen- 
tleman, proprietor of a plantation upon which wheat 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



17 



and tobacco were raised, and fisheries and brickyards 
carried on. He had about 125 slaves. He was a 
good master ; and directed in his will that on his 
death his slaves should have their freedom. He be- 
came a member of the House of Burgesses, but 
seldom took any active part. When he spoke at all, 
it was briefly, but Patrick Henry said that he was, 




Washington's house, mount vrrnon. 

" for solid information and sound judgment, unques- 
tionably the greatest man in the Assembly." 

The Federal Constitution is the result of the labors 
of a convention called at Philadelphia in May, 1787, 
when it was feared by many that the Union was in 
danger, from inability to pay soldiers who had, in 
1783, been disbanded on a declaration of peace and 
an acknowledgment of independence ; from prostra- 



r 8 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

tion of the public credit ; and from the neglect to 
provide for the payment of even the interest on the 
public debt. A large portion of the convention clung 
to the confederacy of the States, and advocated a re- 
vival of the old articles of confederation with addi- 
tional powers to Congress. A long discussion fol- 
lowed, but a constitution for the people embodying 
a division of legislative, judicial and executive pow- 
ers prevailed, and the result is now witnessed in our 
Federal Constitution. The Revolutionary War lasted 
but seven years, while the political revolution direc- 
ting it lasted thirteen years. This was completed on 
April 30, 1789, when Washington was inaugurated 
as the first President under the Federal Constitution. 

The meeting of the new Government was to be on 
March 4, 1789 ; but so backward were some of the 
States in sending representatives that it was April 6 
before a quorum of both Houses could be formed. 
On the votes for President and Vice-President being 
opened and counted, it was found that Washington 
had received the largest number of suffrages, and 
John Adams the next largest. The former, there- 
fore, stood in the position of President ; the latter in 
that of Vice-President. It was on this way, originally, 
that the two chief officers of the Union were selected. 
The news that he had been chosen to the Presidency 
was communicated to Washington on April 14. He 
departed for the seat of Government on the 16th. 
His journey to New York was one continued triumph. 
The roads were lined with people who came out to 
see him as he passed. 

Continuing his journey, he arrived on the banks 



GEOkGE WASHINGTON. 



*9 



of the Delaware, close to the city of Trenton. The 
opposite shore of the river was thronged with an 
enthusiastic crowd. An arch, composed of laurels 
and hot-house flowers, spanned the bridge and on 
the crown of the arch, in letters of leaves and blos- 
soms, were the words, "December 26, 1776," while 
on the space beneath was the sentence, " The De- 
fender of the Mothers will be the Protector of the 
Daughters." Here the matrons of the city were 
drawn up, and, as Washington passed under the 
arch, a number of young girls, dressed in white and 
crowned with garlands, strewed flowers before him. 
and chanted a song of welcome. 

Washington reached New York City on April 23, 
but the inauguration did not take place until a week 
later. On the morning of April 30, religious ser- 
vices were held in all the churches. At noon the 
city troops paraded before Washington's door, and 
soon afterwards the Committees of Congress and 
heads of departments arrived in their carriages. A 
procession was formed, and, preceded by troops, 
moved forward to the Old City Hall, standing on 
the sight of the present Custom-house. Washing- 
ton rode in a state coach, and the chief officials in 
their own carriages. The Foreign Ministers and a 
long train of citizens followed ; and the windows 
along the whole line of the route were crowded with 
spectators. On nearing the Hall, Washington and 
his suite alighted from their carriages, and passed 
through two lines of troops into the Senate Cham- 
ber, where the Vice-President, the Senate, and the 
members of the House of Representatives were 



2 o LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

assembled. John Adams, as the Vice-President, con- 
ducted Washington to a chair of state at the upper end 
of the room. After a solemn pause, the Vice-President 
rose, and informed the President that all things 
were prepared for him to take the oath of office. 
It was arranged that- the oath should be administered 
by Robert R. Livingston, the Chancellor of the 
State of New York, in a balcony of the Senate 
Chamber, and in full view of the people assembled 
below. 

At the appointed hour, Washington came out on 
the balcony, accompanied by various public officers, 
and by members of the Senate and House of Repre- 
sentatives. The President-elect was clad in a full 
suit of dark brown cloth, of American manufacture, 
with a steel-hilted dress sword, white silk stock- 
ings, and silver shoe-buckles ; and his hair was 
dressed and powdered in the fashion of the day, and 
worn in a bag and solitaire. Loud shouts greeted 
his appearance. He was evidently somewhat 
shaken by this testimony of public affection, and, 
advancing to the front of the balcony, laid his hand 
upon his heart, bowed several times, and then re- 
tired to an arm-chair near the table. He was now 
supported on the right by John Adams, and on the 
left by Robert R. Livingston, while in the rear 
were several of his old friends and military com- 
panions. The Bible was held up on its crimson 
cushion by the Secretary of the Senate, while the 
Chancellor read the terms of the oath, slowly and 
distinctly. These were: "I do solemnly swear 
that I will faithfully execute the office of President 
of the United States, and will, to the best of my 




the; inauguration of Washington. 



21 



22 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitu- 
tion of the United States." While the words were 
being recited, Washington kept his hand on the 
open Bible, and on the conclusion of the oath he 
solemnly responded, " I swear — so help me God!" 
The secretary offered to raise the Bible to his lips; 
but he bowed down reverently, and kissed it. The 
.Chancellor now stepped forward, and exclaimed, 
"Long live George Washington, President of the 
United States!" A flag was run up above the 
cupola of the Hall; thirteen guns on the battery 
were discharged; the bells of the city burst into 
joyous peals; and the voices of the people again 
poured forth the grandest of all forms of homage. 

In all governments there must be parties. At the 
beginning, we had the Republicans (now the Demo- 
crats), who desired a government republican in form 
and democratic in spirit, with right of local self- 
government and State rights ever uppermost. The 
Federalists desired a government republican in form, 
with checks upon the impulses or passions of the 
people; liberty, sternly regulated by law, and that 
law strengthened and confirmed by central authority 
— the authority of the National Government to be 
final in appeals. 

Party hostilities were not manifested in the Presi- 
dential election. All bowed to the popularity of 
Washington, and he was unanimously nominated. 
He selected his cabinet from the leading minds of both 
parties, and while himself a recognized Federalist, 
all felt that he was acting for the good of all, and in 
the earlier years of his administration none disputed 
this fact, 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 2 % 

As the new measures of the Government advanced, 
however, the anti-Federalists organized an opposition 
to the party in power. Immediate danger had 
passed. The Constitution worked w 7 ell. The laws 
of Congress were respected ; its calls on the States for 
revenue honored, and Washington devoted much of 
his first and second messages to showing the grow- 
ing prosperity of the country, and the respect which 
it was beginning to excite abroad. But where there 
is political power, there is opposition in a free land, 
and the great leaders of that day neither forfeited 
their reputations as patriots, or their characters as 
statesmen, by the assertion of honest differences of 
opinion. Washington, Adams, and Hamilton were 
the recognized leaders of the Federalists, the firm 
friends of the Constitution. The success of this 
instrument modified the views of the anti-Federalists, 
and Madison, of Virginia, its recognized friend when 
it was in preparation, joined with others who had 
been its friends in opposing the administration, 
and soon became recognized leaders of the anti- 
Federalists. Jefferson was then on a mission to 
France, and not until some years thereafter did he 
array himself with those opposed to centralized 
power in the nation. He returned in November, 
1789, and was called to Washington's Cabinet. 

It was a great Cabinet. Thomas Jefferson, of Vir- 
ginia, the author of the Declaration of Independence, 
was deservedly made Secretary of State, which 
is looked upon as the chief office in the gift of the 
administration. Alexander Hamilton, of New 
York, who had taken part in the battles of White 
Plains, Trenton, and Princeton, and in the second 



24 



LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 



year of the war was made Washington's aide-de- 
camp and confidential military secretary, and who 
remained with the army till the British surrendered 
at Yorktown, where he was at the head of his com- 
mand, was placed at the head of the Treasury. 

Henry Knox, of Mas- 
sachusetts, took a 
conspicuous part in 
the Battle of Tren- 
ton, where he was 
wounded, but was no 
less active in the suc- 
ceediuor battles of 
Princeton, Brandy- 
wine and German- 
town. He was com- 
mended for his mili- 
tary skill and cool, 
determined bravery 
at Yorktown ; when 
Congress advanced 
him to the rank 
of Major-General 
and he took pos- 
session of New York 
when the British 
finally evacuated it 
in 1783. He shared intimately and constantly in all 
the Councils with Washington in the field, and quite 
naturally was appointed Secretary of War. 

Edmund Randolph, who had been Governor of 
Virginia, and a member of the Constitutional Con- 
vention, was appointed Attorney-General. He was 




AUCXANDER HAMILTON. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



25 



advanced to the office of Secretary of State when 
Jefferson resigned in 1794. 

The first session of Congress, held in New York, 
sat for nearly six months. Nearly all the laws 
framed pointed to the organization of the Govern- 
ment, and the discussions were general and pro- 
tracted. The Federalists carried their measures by 
small majorities. 

Much of the second session was devoted to the 
discussion of the able reports of Hamilton, and their 
final adoption did much to build up the credit of the 
nation and to promote its industries. He was the 
author of the protective system. He recommended 
the funding of the war debt, the assumption of the 
State war debts by the National Government, the 
providing of a system of revenue for the collection 
of duties on imports, and an internal excise. His 
advocacy of a protective tariff was plain, for he de- 
clared it be necessary for the support of the Govern- 
ment and the encouragement of manufacturers that du- 
ties be laid on goods, wares, and merchandise imported. 

The third session of Congress was held at Phila- 
delphia, though the seat of the National Government 
had, at the previous one, been fixed on the Potomac. 
To complete Hamilton's financial system, a national 
bank was incorporated. On this project both the 
members of Congress and of the Cabinet were di- 
vided, but it passed, and was promptly approved by 
Washington. It came to be known that Jefferson 
and Hamilton held opposing views on many ques- 
tions of government, and these influenced the 
action of Congress, and passed to the people, who 



2 6 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

were thus early believed to be almost equally divided 
on the more essential political issues. Before the 
close of the session, Vermont and Kentucky were 
admitted to the Union. Vermont was the first State 
admitted in addition to the original thirteen. True, 
North Carolina and Rhode Island had rejected the 
Constitution, but they reconsidered their action and 
came in, the former in November, 1789, and the 
latter in May, 1790. 

The next Congress had a majority in both branches 
favorable to the administration. It met at Philadel- 
phia in October, 179 1. The exciting measure of 
the session was the Excise Act. The people of west- 
ern Pennsylvania, largely interested in distilleries, 
prepared for armed resistance to the excise law, but 
at the same session a national militia law had been 
passed, and Washington took advantage of this to 
suppress the u Whisky (or Shaw's) Rebellion" in its 
incipiency. It was a hasty, rash undertaking, yet 
was dealt with so firmly that the action of the au- 
thorities strengthened the law and the respect for 
order. 

Congress passed an apportionment bill, which 
based the congressional representation on the census 
taken in 1790, the basis being 33,000 inhabitants for 
each representative. The second session sat from 
November, 1792, to March, 1793, an( ^ was occupied 
in discussing the foreign and domestic relations of 
the country. 

The most serious objection to the Constitution, 
before its ratification, was the absence of a distinct 
bill of rights, which should recognize "the equality 
of all men, and their rights to life, liberty and the 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



27 



pursuit of happiness," and the first Congress framed 
a bill containing twelve articles, ten of which were 
afterwards ratified as amendments to the Constitu- 
tion. Yet State sovereignty, then imperfectly de- 
fined, was the prevailing idea in the minds of the 
Anti-Federalists, and they took every opportunity 
to oppose any extended delegation of authority from 




INDEPENDENCE HAI,!,, AS IT WAS IN 1 776. 



the States to the Union. They contended that the 
power of the State should be supreme, and charged 
the Federalists with monarchical tendencies. They 
opposed Hamilton's national bank scheme, and Jef- 
ferson and Randolph expressed the opinion that it 
was unconstitutional — that a bank was not author- 
ized by the Constitution, and that it would prevent 



28 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

the States from maintaining banks. But when the 
bill of rights had been incorporated in and attached 
to the Constitution as amendments, Jefferson with 
rare political sagacity withdrew all opposition to the 
instrument itself, and the Anti-Federalists gladly 
followed his lead, for they felt that they had labored 
under many partisan disadvantages. The Constitu- 
tion was from the first too strong for successful 
resistance, and when opposition was confessedly 
abandoned the party name was changed, at the sug- 
gestion of Jefferson, to that of Republican. The 
Anti-Federalists were at first disposed to call their 
party the Democratic-Republicans, but finally called 
it simply Republican, to avoid the opposite of the 
extreme which they charged against the Federalists. 
Each party had its taunts in use, the Federalists 
being denounced as monarchists, the Anti-Federal- 
ists as Democrats; the one presumed to be looking 
forward to monarchy, the other to the rule of the 
mob. 

By 1793 partisan lines, under the names of Fed- 
eralists and Republicans, were plainly drawn. 
Personal ambition had much to do with it, for 
Washington had expressed his desire to retire to 
private life. While he remained at the head of 
affairs he was unwilling to part with Jefferson and 
Hamilton, and did all in his power to bring about a 
reconciliation, but without success. Before the close 
of the first Constitutional Presidency, Washington 
became convinced that the people desired him to 
accept a re-election, and he was accordingly a candi- 
date and unanimously chosen. John Adams was 
re-elected Vice-President, receiving TJ votes to 50 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



29 



for George Clinton, of New York. The electors 
could not vote for Washington and Jefferson, both 
being from Virginia. 

Soon after the inauguration, Genet, an envoy 




GEORGE CLINTON. 



from the French republic, arrived and sought to 
excite the sympathy of the United States and involve 
it in a war with Great Britain. Jefferson and his 
Republican party warmly sympathized with France, 



3o 



LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 



and insisted that gratitude for revolutionary favors 
commanded aid to France in her struggles. The 
Federalists, under Washington and Hamilton, fa- 
vored non-intervention, and insisted that we should 
maintain friendly relations with Great Britain. 
Washington showed his usual firmness, and issued 
his celebrated proclamation of neutrality. This has 
ever since been the accepted foreign policy of the 
nation. 

The French agitation showed its impress as late 
as 1794, when a resolution to cut off intercourse with 
Great Britain passed the House, and was defeated in 
the Senate only by casting the vote of the Vice- 
President, John Adams. Jefferson left the Cabinet 
the December previous, and retired to his plantation 
in Virginia, where he spent his leisure in writing 
political essays and organizing the Republican party, 
of which he was the acknowledged founder. Here 
he escaped the errors of his party in Congress, but it 
was a fact that his friends not only did not endorse 
the non-intervention policy of Washington, but that 
they actively antagonized it in many ways. The 
congressional leader in these movements was James 
Madison; afterwards elected to the Presidency. The 
policy of Britain fed this opposition. The forts on 
Lake Erie were still occupied by the British soldiery 
in defiance of the treaty of 1783; American vessels 
were seized on their way to French ports, and 
American citizens were impressed ; England claiming 
the right during the Napoleonic wars to man her 
ships with her subjects wherever she could find them. 
To avoid a war, Washington sent John Jay as envoy 
to England, He arrived in June, 1794, and by 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 3 1 

November succeeded in making a treaty. It was 
ratified in June, 1795, by the Senate, though there 
was much opposition, and the feeling between the 
Federal and Republican parties ran higher than 
ever. The Republicans denounced while the Fed- 
erals congratulated Washington. Under this treaty 
the British surrendered possession of all American 
ports, and as General Wayne during the previous 
summer had conquered the war-tribes and completed 
a treaty with them, the country was again on the 
road to prosperity. 

Jefferson retired from the Cabinet December 10, 
1793. He was followed by Hamilton on January 31, 
1795. His old friend General Knox quitted the 
War Office some time before. Washington felt con- 
siderably weakened by these retirements and could 
now count on but slight assistance in repelling the 
attacks of the Democratic party. John Jay was in 
England trying to adjust the old differences. 

In March, 1796, a new issue was sprung in the 
House by a resolution requesting from the President 
a copy of the instructions to John Jay, who made the 
treaty with Great Britain. 

A storm of popular fury awaited the document. 
Meetings were called in every town, and few dared 
to say a word in favor of the detested concessions. 
Jay was burned in effigy; Hamilton was stoned; and 
the British Minister at Philadelphia was insulted. 
The Democrats were especially loud in their condem- 
nation. They declared that such a treaty was an act 
of base ingratitude to France, and involved nothing 
short of treason to America herself, whose watch- 
word should at all times be hatred to monarchy and 



32 



LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 



to England. Even the President was treated with 
little respect, and had been compelled to rebuke 
those who had sent some of the more violent ad- 
dresses. Hamilton and others defended the treaty, 
by their pens, with great power and marked effect, 
and signs of a reaction became visible after awhile. 

In spite of all the public clamor, the House, after 
more calm and able debates, passed the needed legis- 
lation to carry out the treaty by a vote of 51 to 48, 
and the treaty with England was signed by the 
President August 18, 1795. 

It was with feelings of relief that Washington 
saw the termination of his Presidency approaching. 
His Farewell Address to the people of the United 
States was dated September 17, 1796, though his 
retirement from office was not to take place until 
March 4, in the following year. In this document, 
Washington announced the resolution he had formed 
to decline being considered among the number of 
those out of whom a new President was to be chosen. 
He expressed the acknowledgments he owed the 
country for the honors it had conferred upon him ; 
for the steadfast confidence with which it had sup- 
ported his measures, and for the opportunities he had 
thence enjoyed of manifesting his inviolable attach- 
ment to the institutions of the land. The Constitu- 
tion established in 1787, he observed, had a just 
claim on the confidence and support of the entire 
nation. The basis of the political system was the 
right of the people to make and to alter their Consti- 
tutions. But the Constitution existing for the time 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



33 



was obligatory upon all, until changed by an explicit 
or authentic act of the whole people. 

Tennessee was admitted to the Union on June i, 
1796. In the Presidential battle that followed, both 




wmmmmm 

WASHINGTON'S GRAVK, MOUNT VERNON. 

parties were confident and plainly arrayed, and so 
close was the result that the leaders of both were 
elected — John Adams the nominee of the Federalists 
to the Presidency, and Thomas Jefferson, the nominee 
3 



34 



LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 



of the Republicans, to the Vice-Presidency. The 
law which then obtained was that the candidate who 
received the highest number of electoral votes, took 
the first place, and the next highest, the second. 
Thomas Pinckney, of Sonth Carolina, was the Fed- 
eral nominee for Vice-President, and Aaron Burr, of 
New York, of the Republicans. John Adams, re- 
ceived 7 1 electoral votes ; Thomas Jefferson, 68 ; 
Thomas Pinckney, 59 ; Aaron Burr, 30 ; Samuel 
Adams, the '/silver-tongued orator" of independence 
fame, 15 ; and scattering, 37. 

Upon the inauguration of John Adams, March 4, 
1797, Washington retired to his family-seat at Mount 
Vernon, where he remained till called again by 
Adams to take command of the new army, organized 
in May, 1798. He died December 14, 1799, aged 68 
years and w T as buried at Mount Vernon. 

To all Americans, the life of George Washington 
is the noblest, the grandest, and the most influential 
in all our history, and ranks beside the most illus- 
trious characters that have ever lived. 




JOHN ADAMS. 35 



JOHN ADAMS— 1 797-1801. 

John Adams, the second President, was born in 
Massachusetts on October 30, 1736. His parents 
were of the class, then abounding in New Eng- 
land, who united the profession of agriculture 
with some of the mechanic arts. His ancestor 
Henry had emigrated from England in 1632, 
and had established himself at Braintree with 
six sons, all of whom married : from one President 
Adams descended, and from another that Samuel 
Adams who, with John Hancock, was by name pro- 
scribed by an Act of the British Parliament, for the 
conspicuous part he acted in the early stages of the 
opposition to the measures of the British Govern- 
ment. When 15 years of age, his father proposed to 
John either to follow the family pursuits, and to 
receive in due time his portion of the estate, or to 
have the expense of a learned education bestowed 
upon him, with which, instead of any fortune, he 
was to make his way in future life. He chose the 
latter ; and having received some preparatory in- 
struction, was admitted at Harvard College in 1751. 
After graduating in 1755, he removed to the town 
of Worcester, where, according to the economical 
practice of that day in New England, he became a 
tutor in a grammar school, and at the same time 
began the study of law ; and was admitted to practice 
in 1758. In 1765 he was chosen one of the represen- 
tatives of his native town to the congress of the 
province. His first prominent appearance in political 
affairs was at a meeting to oppose the Stamp Act. 



36 



LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 



The resolutions he proposed were carried unani- 
mously, and were adopted by more than forty other 
towns. In 1768 he removed to Boston. 

When it was determined, in 1774, to assemble a 
general Congress from the several Colonies, Adams 
was one of those selected by the people of Massa- 
chusetts. Before departing for Philadelphia to join 
the Congress, he parted with his fellow-student and 
associate at the bar, Jonathan Sewall, who had 
attained the rank of attorney-general, and was 
necessarily opposed to his political views. Sewall 
made an effort to change his determination, and to 
deter him from going to the Congress. He urged 
that Britain was determined on her system, and was 
irresistible, and would be destructive to him and all 
those who should persevere in opposition to her de- 
signs. To this Adams replied : "I know that Great 
Britain hac determined on her system, and that very 
fact determines me on mine. You know I have 
been constant and uniform in opposition to her meas- 
ures ; the die is now cast ; I have passed the Rubicon; 
to swim or sink, live or die, survive or perish with 
my country, is my unalterable determination." 

When the Continental Congress assembled Adams 
became one of its most active and energetic leaders. 
He was a member of the committee which framed 
the Declaration of Independence; and one of the 
most powerful advocates for its adoption by the gen- 
eral body ; and by his eloquence obtained the unan- 
imous suffrages of that assembly. Jefferson said, 
"Mr. Adams was the Colossus on that floor." 
Though he was appointed chief-justice in 1776, he 
declined the office, in order to dedicate his talents to 
the general purpose of the defence of the country. 



JOHN ADAMS. 



37 



In 1777 he, with three other members, was ap- 
pointed a commissioner to France. He remained in 
Paris nearly two years, when, in consequence of dis- 
agreements, all but Franklin were recalled. In the 




JOHN ADAMS. 



end of 1779 he was charged with two commissions, 
— one to treat for peace, the other empowering him 
to form a commercial treaty with Great Britain. He 
went to Holland, and there, in opposition to the in- 



38 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

flueuce and talents of the British Minister, he suc- 
ceeded in negotiating a loan, and in procuring the 
assistance of that country in the defence against 
Great Britain. He formed a commercial treaty with 
Holland. In 1785 he was appointed Ambassador to 
the Court of his former Sovereign, King George III. 
He returned home in 1787, after devoting ten years 
to the public service ; received the thanks of Con- 
gress, and was elected under the Presidency of Wash- 
ington, to the office of Vice-President. In framing 
fundamental laws and State papers, he displayed 
the highest qualities of a jurist and a statesman, 
while in his negotiations abroad he exhibited rare 
diplomatic sagacity. He was among the strongest 
and wisest of our State Builders, and no other man 
had such claims to be the immediate successor of 
Washington. 

In the Presidential contest, the Democrats had one 
advantage over the Federalists. Their allegiance 
was given entirely to one man, while their opponents 
were divided in their regards among divers candi- 
dates. Several influential leaders in the Northern 
and Eastern States desired to return Alexander 
Hamilton; others were inclined to support John Jay; 
but to the greater number John Adams seemed the 
fittest person for filling the office. Hamilton was 
considered too much inclined towards England, and 
Jay had rendered himself unpopular by his recent 
treaty with Great Britain. The contest, therefore, 
narrowed itself into a struggle between John x^dams 
and Thomas Jefferson. Adams enjoyed the confidence 
of many in the Northern States; even among the 
Southern, he was not entirely devoid of friends and 



JOHN ADAMS. 39 

believers; and Jefferson himself observed that he was 
die only sure barrier against Hamilton's getting in. 

As we have seen, the election was a very close 
one. The votes received by Adams were 71, which 
was one more than the requisite number. Jefferson 
stood only three votes lower, and therefore became 
Vice-President. Although Adams was thus success- 
ful, the narrowness of his majority (and that it was 
a majority at all was due to a few unexpected votes 
from the South) showed how strong a party existed 
against the opinions which he embodied. He 
called himself "the President of three votes," and 
felt that his position was insecure, or at least ex- 
tremely difficult. Yet he determined to abate not 
one jot in vindication of his opinions. On March 
4, 1797, he took the oath of office. The ceremony 
was performed in the House of Representatives, but 
without any distinctive circumstances. In his inau- 
gural speech, Adams made it sufficiently clear that 
his alleged preference for a monarchy had no foun- 
dation in fact, and it was generally admitted that his 
statement of principles was satisfactory. Washington 
was present as a spectator. Adams adopted as his 
own the Cabinet left by Washington. George Cabot 
of Massachusetts was appointed Secretary of the 
Navy, May 3, 1798. Naval affairs had been under 
the control of the Secretary of War until the Navy 
Department was organized, April 30, 1798. 

The French Revolution now reached its highest 
point, and our people naturally took sides. Adams 
found he would have to arm to preserve neutrality 
and at the same time punish the aggression of either 
of the combatants. This was our first exhibition of 



40 THE LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

"armed neutrality." A navy was quickly raised, 
and every preparation made for defending our rights. 
An alliance with France was refused, our minister 
was dismissed; and the French navy began to cripple 
our trade. In May, 1797, President Adams felt it 
his duty to call an extra session of Congress. The 
Senate approved of negotiations for reconciliation 
with France. They were attempted, but proved 
fruitless. Our envoys were informed that in order 
to secure peace the United States must make a loan 
to the French Government, and pay secret bribes to 
members of the Directory. These demands were re- 
sisted with just disdain; and Pinckney exclaimed, 
in a sentence which has since become famous, 
"Millions for defence, but not one cent for tribute." 

In May, an army was voted. To command this 
force Washington was called from his retirement, 
and, as might have been expected of him, at once 
obeyed the call. He stipulated that Hamilton should 
be the acting Commander-in-Chief, and that the 
principal officers should be such as he approved; 
and, as on previous occasions, he declined to receive 
any part of the emoluments attached to the office, 
except as a reimbursement of sums he might himself 
lay out. A large part of his time, to the end of his 
life, was taken up with the organization of the new 
force which it was found necessary to create. 

For the office of his Inspector-General, and his 
two Major-Generals, he proposed Hamilton, Charles 
Cotesworth Pinckney, and General Henry Knox. 
This arrangement displeased Knox, who believed, 
that as an older officer than either of the other two, 
he had a claim to the post of Inspector-General, 



JOHN ADAMS. 4 1 

An attempt was made by some members of Con- 
gress to bring on a declaration of war ; but the attempt 
failed. The President and his Cabinet were hope- 
lessly at issue, and the latter omitted no opportunity 
of embarrassing their chief's plans. The feeling of 
the country was in favor of war. Adams suffered 
from the difficulties which naturally belong to moder- 
ation. He was not loved by either of the contending 
parties, since he held aloof from the exaggerations of 
both. He was disliked by the Democrats, because he 
would not be the servant of France ; he was equally 
disliked by the Ultra-Federalists, because he declined 
to rush headlong into a wild crusade against the 
Directory and its principles. Nothing, however, was 
more conspicuous in Adams than strength of will. 
Although Congress was not heartily in his favor, and 
his own Cabinet were very much against him, he 
persevered in his views. 

The friends of Hamilton, in the early summer of 
1799, appealed to Washington to put himself forward 
once more as a candidate for the Presidential office. 
The idea was to some extent, though secretly, sup- 
ported by the members of Adams' Cabinet ; it met 
with great favor in the New England States ; and 
Gouverneur Morris of New York was commissioned to ' 
address to the Commander-in-Chief a specific request 
to this effect. Death prevented Washington's knowing 
anything of the design ; and it is more than likely 
that he would have refused to connect himself with 
it. He had done enough for duty, for fame, and for 
immortality, and it was not possible for him to stoop 
to the vulgar level of party intrigues. 



42 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

The relations between Adams and his Cabinet 
grew daily more unsatisfactory. The latter were much 
under the influence of Hamilton, and that influence 
was unfavorable to the President. Adams accordingly 
resolved, in the early part of 1800, on changing some 
of them. Those who had been his confidential ad- 
visers co-operated with others to decry his character 
for political sagacity, and even for political honesty. 
Their proceedings were not unknown to Adams, who 
alleged that his Federal enemies were inflamed against 
him because he had refused to lend himself to their 
schemes for an alliance with England, and a war 
against France. 

The position of the President was harassed by the 
alien and sedition laws, which were unpopular, and 
were in truth- of so arbitrary a character as to furnish 
very good texts for the opposition to dilate upon. 
The Alien Act authorized the President to expel from 
the country any foreigner not a citizen, who might 
be suspected of conspiring against the Republic. The 
Sedition Act punished with fines and imprisonment 
those who might circulate " any false, scandalous, and 
malicious writing against the Government of the 
United States, or either House of Congress, or the 
President." The Legislatures of Virginia and Ken- 
tucky declared both these Acts to be unconstitutional, 
and they were eventually repealed. They were 
happily got rid of; though they had the approval 
of Washington. 

The Naturalization Law was favored by the Fed- 
eralists, because they knew they could acquire few 
friends from newly arrived English or French aliens ; 



JOHN ADAMS. 43 

among other requirements it provided that an alien 
must reside in the United States fourteen years 
before he could vote. The Republicans denounced 
this law as calculated to check immigration, and 
dangerous to our country in the fact that it caused 
too manv inhabitants to owe no allegiance what- 
ever. They also asserted, as did those who opposed 
Americanism later on in our history, that America 
was properly an asylum for all nations, and that 
those coming to America should freely share all the 
privileges and liberties of the government. 

Another cause of unpopularity was found in the 
war- taxes imposed by Adams' Administration. We 
had now 16 States, and the concurrence of nine of 
these was necessary to a Presidential election. The 
official life of Adams terminated in his nominating 
at midnight on March 3, several of his party to high 
judicial functions, in accordance with a measure 
passed for reorganizing the Federal Courts. That 
Act had reduced the future number of Justices of 
the Supreme Court, and had increased the District 
Courts to twenty-three. Adams considered it neces- 
sary that these high judicial posts should be filled by 
members of the Federal body as a counterpoise to 
that reaction in favor of the Democrats which he 
foresaw would follow the election of Jefferson to the 
Presidency; but the precaution proved unavailing. 
Just then, Oliver Ellsworth resigned his position as 
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Adams offered 
the place to Jay, and, on that gentleman declining 
to serve, because of bad health, conferred it on John 
Marshall, who, not long before, had been made 
Secretary of State, The other appointments were 



44 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

conceived in the same spirit and with the same 
object, and Jefferson always resented them very 
strongly, as a check on the designs which he de- 
termined to carry out as soon as power had passed 
into his hands. 

In the Presidential election of 1800 John Adams 
was the nominee for President and Charles C. Pinck- 
ney for Vice-President. A "Congressional Conven- 
tion " of Republicans, held in Philadelphia, nomi- 
nated Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Bnrr as candidates 
for these offices. On the election which followed, 
the Republicans chose 73 electors and the Federal- 
ists 65. Each elector voted for two persons, and 
the Republicans so voted that they unwisely gave 
Jefferson and Burr each J3 votes. Neither being 
highest, the election had to go to the House of Rep- 
resentatives for settlement. The Federalists threw 
65 votes to Adams and 64 to Pinckney. The Repub- 
licans could have done the same, but Burr's intrigue 
and ambition prevented this, and the result was a 
protracted contest in the House, and one which put 
the country in great peril, but which plainly pointed 
out some of the imperfections of the electoral fea- 
tures of the Constitution. Jefferson was elected on 
the 36th ballot. The bitterness of this strife, and 
the dangers which similar ones threatened, led to an 
abandonment of the old system and an amendment 
was offered requiring the electors to ballot separately 
for President and Vice-President. 

Jefferson was the first candidate nominated by a 
Congressional caucus. It convened in 1800 at 
Philadelphia, and nominated Thomas Jefferson, of 



JOHN ADAMS. 



45 



Virginia, for President, and Aaron Burr, of New 
York, for Vice-President. Adams and Pinckney were 
not nominated, but ran and were accepted as national 
leaders of their party, just as Washington and Adams 
were before them. This contest broke the power of 

the Federal party. 

The defeat of 
Adams was not un- 
expected by him, yet 
it was regretted by 
his friends. He re- 
tired with dignity, at 
68 years of age, to his 
native place, formed 
no political factions 
against those in 
power, but publicly 
expressed his appro- 
bation of the meas- 
ures which were pur- 
s u e d by Jefferson. 
He died in Braintree, 
Massachusetts, July 
4, 1826— the fiftieth 
anniversary of the 
aaron burr. Declaration of Inde- 

pendence — and by a 
singular coincidence, Jefferson, his political rival, but 
firmly attached friend, died a few hours earlier the 
same day. Adams' last words were, "Jefferson still 
survives;" he was not aware that Jefferson had died 
four hours earlier. 

rank among the 




John Adams holds no second 



46 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

founders of the Republic. In depth and breadth of 
comprehension; in heroic statesmanship; in fire and 
persuasion of eloquence; in clearness of prophetic 
gaze; in warm sympathies and defence of human 
rights; in his estimate of the dignity and sacredness 
of man; in his idolatrous worship of Human Liberty; 
in his hatred of Despotism; in his matchless execu- 
tive ability; in his broad and varied political knowl- 
edge; in the depth and clearness with which he 
stamped the seal of his mind and character upon the 
men of his time, and those who were to come after 
him — he has had no equal in our history. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON— 1801-1809. 

Thomas Jefferson, the third President, was 
born April 2, 1743, in Virginia. He was the eldest 
son in a family of eight children. At college he was 
noted for his close application to his studies. He 
was versed in Latin and Greek, and Italian, French 
and Spanish. He studied law, and was admitted to 
the bar in 1767, and his success in his chosen profes- 
sion was remarkable. In 1769 he was a member of 
the Virginia House of Burgesses. He was elected 
in 1774 a member of the Convention to choose 
delegates to the first Continental Congress at Phil- 
adelphia. In June, 1775, he took his seat in the 
Congress; and was appointed one of a committee to 
draft a declaration of independence — when he pro- 
duced that great State paper and charter of freedom, 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 



47 



kuown as the Declaration of Independence, which on 
July 4, 1776, was unanimously adopted and signed 




THOMAS JEFFERSON. 



by all of the fifty-six members present, excepting 
John Dickinson of Pennsylvania. 



48 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

The Declaration of Independence is equal to any- 
thing' ever borne on parchment or expressed in the 
visible signs of thought. The heart of Jefferson in 
writing it, and of Congress in adopting it, beat for 
all humanity. In the Virginia Assembly he pro- 
cured the repeal of the laws of entail, the abolition 
of primogeniture, and the restoration of the rights 
of conscience. These reforms he believed would do 
away with every fibre of ancient or future aristocracy. 

In 1779 he succeeded Patrick Henry as Governor 
of Virginia. He declined a re-election in 1781. In 
1783 he returned to Congress, where he established 
the present Federal system of coinage, doing away 
with the English pounds, shillings, and pence. In 
1785 he succeeded Benjamin Franklin as Minister at 
Paris; and here began that attachment for the 
French nation which appeared in all his subsequent 
career. He returned to Virginia in 1789, shortly 
after Washington's election to the Presidency. He 
was immediately offered the office of Secretary of 
State, which he at once accepted. He disagreed 
with Hamilton in nearly all his financial measures, 
and to avoid the squabblings among the Cabinet he 
resigned his office December 31, 1793. At the close 
of Washington's second term he was brought for- 
ward as the Presidential candidate of the Republi- 
cans. John Adams, the Federalist nominee, was 
elected, and Jefferson receiving the next highest 
number of votes, was declared Vice-President. The 
offices were thus divided by the candidates of the 
two opposing parties. 

The inauguration of Jefferson took place March 4, 
1801. It would have been more courteous had Adams 




Jr^lJddmi $aan 






T3^ 



%*r* 



U>7^?t/ 



C ° 







5° 



SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 5 1 













^/w 




7 

SIGNKRS OF THH DECLARATION. 

remained at the Federal capitol until the installation 
of his successor; had he been present at the ceremony, 
and spoken some words of formal compliment. But 
he was a man of quick and passionate nature s and 



52 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

did not care to grace the spectacle of his rival's entry 
into power. He was irritated also by the defection 
of those of his own party whose treachery had caused 
his defeat. From these causes, the retiring Presi- 
dent felt unable, or unwilling, to do towards Jefferson 
what Washington had done towards himself. He left 
the capitol just before the inauguration and from 
that time to the end of his long life ceased to have 
any vital influence on the course of American 
politics. 

With the year 1801, a change took place in the 
policy of the Government. Jefferson, the new Presi- 
dent, had forsaken the Northern supporters of Inde- 
pendence and of the existing political condition. He 
had founded a party, the great objects of which were 
to weaken the general powers of the Union, and to 
hold authority within the narrowest limits. To that 
party he had given the energy of his genius, the 
strength of his will, and the force and mastery of his 
organizing abilities. The mistakes of Adams' Pres- 
idency — mistakes for which the subordinates were 
more responsible than the chief — had vastly im- 
proved the position of Jefferson and his friends, and 
the new President found himself at the head of a 
numerous body of supporters, with an ever-increas- 
ing accession of opinion in most parts of the country. 
In the period during which he held office, he was 
able to give a new direction to affairs, and to create 
an impulse which, with but few checks or reactions, 
continued for sixty years. 

On assuming office, Jefferson was nearly 58 years 
of age. He was therefore about eight years younger 
than his rival, and represented a somewhat more 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 53 

modern tone of thought. Starting on his career with 
the entire confidence of the Democratic party, he was 
regarded with proportionate distrust by the Federals; 
but his inaugural speech was of a nature to allay 
their fears. None the less was Jefferson determined 
to carry out those projects of reform which he con- 
ceived to be necessary to the existence of Republican 
institutions. Since Jefferson's time, it has been 
usual for Presidents, on coming into power, to effect 
a complete change in the Administration, and to 
make appointments in strict conformity with party 
lines. There is this to be said for this system, it is 
obviously easier for a man to work with his own politi- 
cal followers than with those who are perhaps biassed 
in favor of different opinions. But to Jefferson it 
appeared an indispensable concomitant of democratic 
rule. James Madison of Virginia became Secretary 
of State; Henry Dearborn of Massachusetts, Secretary 
of War; and Levi Lincoln of Massachusetts, Attorney- 
General. Madison, some years before, had been one 
of the most energetic of the Federals, but had long 
gone over to the opposite party. Before the end of the 
year, Albert Gallatin of Pennsylvania had succeeded 
Dexter in the Treasury, and Robert Smith of Mary- 
land had been made Secretary of the Navy. 

With little delay, Jefferson set to work reforming 
and retrenching. He reduced the army and navy; 
cut down the diplomatic corps; submitted to Congress 
a bill for diminishing the Judiciary; and proposed the 
remission of taxes. The internal or Excise duties, 
always unpopular, and now no longer necessary, 
were abolished; and this enabled the President to do 
away with a number of offices which had proved 



54 



LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 



burdensome to the country. The paying off of the 
national debt was an excellent work ; but it could 
hardly have been effected had not Hamilton already 
placed the finances in a healthy condition. 

In 1802, a part of the North-western Territory, 
which had been first organized in 1787, was erected 
into an indepeudent State, with the title of Ohio. 
The population increased with extraordinary rapid- 
ity after the large cession of Indian lands in 1795, 
consequent on the successful war which had been 
carried on by General Wayne. The sense of secur- 
ity thus produced caused a rush of emigration 
towards the North-west, and in 1802 Ohio had a 
population of about 72,000. The Constitution was 
framed in November, and by this instrument it was 
provided that slavery should forever be excluded 
from the State. In 185 1 another Constitution was 
adopted, but the curse of negro bondage has never 
been admitted within the limits of this western 
Government. 

Congress, on the recommendation of Jefferson, es- 
tablished a uniform system of naturalization, and so 
modified the law as to make the required residence 
of aliens five years, instead of fourteen, and to per- 
mit a declaration of intention to become a citizen at 
the expiration of three years. By his recommenda- 
tion also was established the first sinking fund for 
the redemption of the public debt. It required the 
setting apart annually for this purpose the sum of 
$7,300,000. Other measures, more partisan in their 
character, were proposed, but Congress showed an 
aversion to undoing what had been wisely done. 
The provisional army had been disbanded, but the 



56 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

proposition to abolish the naval department was de- 
feated. 

Now was passed the first law in relation to the 
slave trade. It was to prevent the importation of 
negroes, mulattoes, and other persons of color into 
any port of the United States within a State which 
had prohibited by law the admission of any such 
person. The slave trade was not then prohibited by 
the Constitution. 

The most important occurrence under Jefferson 
was the purchase and admission of Louisiana. 
There had been fears of a war with Spain, which 
arose over the south-western boundary line and the 
right of navigating the Mississippi. Our Govern- 
ment learned, in the spring of 1802, that Spain had 
by a secret treaty, made in October, 1800, actually 
ceded Louisiana to France. 

Bonaparte proposed that we should purchase Louis- 
iana, and the offer was at once accepted. This im- 
mense region, watered by one of the finest rivers in 
the world, and conferring the command of all that 
part of America, was added to the United States for 
$15,000,000. The bargain was concluded on April 
30, 1803, and we took possession on December 20th. 
Napoleon observed that " the new accession of terri- 
tory would permanently strengthen the power of the 
United States, and that he had just given to England 
a maritime rival who would sooner or later humble 
her pride." It was objected by some that the 
Floridas and New Orleans would have been a more 
important acquisition than the whole of Louisiana ; 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 5 7 

to which Jefferson astutely replied that the Floridas, 
being now surrounded, must in time be absorbed in 
the Union. Not many years elapsed before his words 
proved true, and in the meanwhile the possession 
of Louisiana assured to us an immense extension 
westward. This very fact, however, was regarded 
by several as a source of danger. The Western 
States, it was argued, had already a considerable 
tendency to separate from their Eastern brethren; 
and, now that they were reinforced by this enormous 
region, would form a distinct confederation. 

Little chance was afforded the Federalists for ad- 
verse criticism in Congress, for the purchase proved 
so popular that the people greatly increased the 
majority in both branches of Congress, and Jefferson 
called it together earlier for the purpose of ratifi- 
cation. 

The Republicans closed their first national admin- 
istration with high prestige. They had met several 
congressional reverses on questions where defeat 
proved good fortune, for the Federalists kept a 
watchful defence, and were not always wrong. The 
latter suffered numerically, and many of their best 
leaders had fallen in the congressional contest of 
1800 and 1802, while the Republicans maintained 
their own additions in talent and number. 

In 1804 the candidates of both parties were nom- 
inated by congressional caucuses. Jefferson and 
George Clinton of New York were the Republican 
nominees ; Charles C. Pinckney and Rufus King of 
New York were the nominees of the Federalists, but 
they only received 14 out of 176 electoral votes. 
Burr had come too near the Presidency to be made 



58 LIVES Or THE PRESIDENTS. 

prominent with Jefferson's consent, and so was dropped 
in favor of George Clinton. 

During the development of these events, affairs 
progressed in a peaceful and orderly fashion. The 
President recommended an exploring expedition across 
the continent from the Mississippi to the Pacific, and 
its members, to the number of thirty, left the Mis- 
sissippi on May 14, 1804. They were absent over two 
years, and returned laden with information which gave 
a clearer conception of the vast and important region 
lying between the great river and the Western Ocean. 

One tragic incident threw a lurid stain on the po- 
litical contests of 1804. A quarrel occurred between 
Alexander Hamilton and the Vice-President. The 
former had reflected upon the character of the latter 
in public, and had caused him to lose his election as 
Governor of New York. Burr demanded a retrac- 
tion, which Hamilton refused. Burr challenged 
him, and they met. Hamilton discharged his pistol 
in the air, but the fire of Burr's weapon took deadly 
effect. The wounded man expired July 13th, and 
the event produced a general sense of indignation 
throughout the Union. 

Jefferson's second term of office began March 4, 
1805. His previous administration had been singu- 
larly successful. He had reduced the public debt 
more than twelve millions ; had lessened the taxes ; 
doubled the area of the United States by his judic- 
ious treaties with France and with the Indians ; 
had chastised the Barbary pirates, and advanced the 
reputation of the country as a naval Power. The 
reward of these services was, that he received more 






60 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

votes at his re-election in 1804 than at his first ap- 
pointment to the Presidency in 1800. 

The struggle of Napoleon in Europe with the 
allied Powers now gave Jefferson an opportunity 
to inaugurate a foreign policy. England had for- 
bidden all trade with the French and their allies, 
and France had in return forbidden all commerce 
with England and her colonies. Both of these de- 
crees violated our neutral rights, and were calculated 
to destroy our commerce, which by this time had 
become quite imposing. 

Congress acted promptly, and passed what is known 
as the Embargo Act, under the inspiration of the 
Republican party, which claimed that the only 
choice of the people lay between the embargo and 
war, and that there was no other way to obtain 
redress from England and France. But the prom- 
ised effects of the measure were not realized, and 
when dissatisfaction was manifested by the people, 
the Federalists made the question a political issue. 
Political agitation increased the discontent, and pub- 
lic opinion at one time turned so strongly against 
the law that it was openly resisted on the Eastern 
coast, and treated with almost as open contempt on 
the Canadian border. 

In January, 1809, the then closing administration 
of Jefferson had to change front on the question, and 
the law was repealed. 

During the Congress which assembled in Decem- 
ber, 1805, the Republicans dropped their name and 
accepted that of "Democrats." In all their earlier 
strifes they had been charged by their opponents 
with desiring: to run to the extremes of the demo- 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 6 1 

era tic or "mob rule," and fear of too general a belief 
in the truth of the charge led them to denials and 
rejection of a name for which the father of their 
party had ever shown a fondness. From now on the 
Jeffersonian Republicans called themselves Demo- 
crats, and the word Republicans passed into disuse 
until later on in the history of our political parties, 
the opponents of the Democracy accepting it as a 
name which filled the meaning of their attitude in 
the politics of the country. 

A resolution appropriating two million dollars for 
the acquisition of Florida was carried after an 
animated debate, but the House now attacked the 
policy of the Government with great vigor, and it 
was not until fifteen years later that Florida passed 
into our possession. 

Public opinion was exasperated to a pitch of fury 
by an event which gave a more than usually irritat- 
ing character to the question of the right of search. 
The British ship-of-war Leopard was cruising off 
Virginia. The American frigate Chesapeake was not 
far away. She was hailed, and a boat despatched 
with a letter to the chief officer, informing him that 
the English Admiral had given orders to take any 
British deserters from the Chesapeake — by force, if 
necessary — and at the same time to allow, on his 
own part, a search for deserters. Permission to 
search was refused. The Leopard thereupon fired 
into the Chesapeake, killing some of the crew ; and 
the latter, being unprepared for action, immediately 
struck her flag. The English officer in command 
required the muster-roll of the ship, and took off 



62 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

four men whom he claimed as British subjects. 

Rage seized on the people when the story of the 
Chesapeake came to be known. The slight resistance 
offered by that vessel increased the general feeling of 
mortification and anger. Some demanded an imme- 
diate declaration of war against England, and Jefferson 
observed that the country had never been in such a 
state since the collision at Lexington. 

The commercial relations between America and 
the European belligerents became progressively more 
troublesome and vexatious. In January, 1807, Great 
Britain issued an order prohibiting the trade of neu- 
trals from port to port of the French Empire. This 
was followed by another order forbidding neutral 
nations to trade with France and her allies, except 
on payment of tribute to Great Britain. The reply 
of Napoleon was a decree, issued from Milan, which 
declared that every neutral vessel which should sub- 
mit to be visited by a British ship, or should pay the 
tribute demanded, would be confiscated, if afterwards 
found in any part of the French Empire, or if taken 
by any of the French cruisers. By these several 
orders and decrees, almost every American vessel 
sailing on the ocean was liable to capture. Thus we 
were made to suffer because England and France 
were at war. As a measure of protection, a law 
laying an indefinite embargo was enacted. The 
measure was passed December 22, 1807. It lasted 
fourteen months. It was unpopular in New Eng- 
land. 

The embargo acted more to the disadvantage of 
England, as being the greatest mercantile nation in 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 63 

the world, than to that of France. For this very 
reason it enjoyed the support of the Democrats, and 
aroused the ire of the Federalists and of those few 
Democrats who had joined in the political schism 
created by Randolph. The feeling against England, 
however, arising from the antagonism of previous 
years, and now intensified by the persistent assertion 
by the British of the right of search, prevailed over 
every other consideration. 

There was a split among the Federalists as well as 
among the Democrats. John Quincy Adams, son of 
the late President, had resigned his seat in the Senate 
because he differed, from the majority of his constitu- 
ents in supporting the measures of the Administra- 
tion. He wrote to the President that it was the 
determination of the ruling party in New England 
to separate themselves from the Union if the em- 
bargo was not speedily rescinded. He gave it as his 
opinion that, owing to the severe pressure of the 
embargo upon that mercantile and trading commu- 
nity, they would be supported in such a course by 
the great body of the people, and that they were 
already receiving the countenance of a secret agent 
of Great Britain. This communication put the 
younger Adams on a more friendly footing with the 
Democratic party, and under the Presidency of Madi- 
son, he was appointed Minister to St. Petersburg. 
His information may in some points have been incor- 
rect ; but the Massachusetts Legislature declared the 
embargo ruinous at home, unsatisfactory to France, 
and ineffectual as a retaliation upon England. 



64 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

During the discussion of these important and dif- 
ficult matters, preparations were being made for the 
next Presidential election. Jefferson had been urged 
by the Legislatures of most of the Republican States 
to accept a third term, but he followed the patriotic 
example set by his predecessor, and declined. There 
were the two candidates of the Democratic party — 
Madison and Monroe — both natives of Virginia. 
Madison, it was known, would continue the policy of 
Jefferson, of whose administration he had through- 
out been the leading member. Monroe received the 
support of John Randolph, and of those seceders 
from the Democratic party who ranged themselves 
under Randolph's guidance. The choice rested with 
Madison, who, on the retirement of Jefferson, would 
be the obvious leader of the great body which his 
intellect and character adorned. The strength of 
the two candidates was tested in a caucus of the 
Democratic members of Congress, where a large 
majority declared for Madison. He was, therefore, 
nominated for the office of President, and George 
Clinton of New York for that of Vice-President. 
Charles C. Pinckney and Rums King were the can- 
didates of the Federal party; and the former received 
the votes of all the New England States, except 
Vermont, the vote of Delaware, two votes in Mary- 
land, and three in North Carolina — making in all 
forty-seven votes. George Clinton received six of 
the nineteen votes of New York, and James Madison 
all the rest, amounting to 122. Madison, therefore, 
was the President for the ensuing four years, and 
Clinton retained the position of Vice-President, 
which he had held since 1805. Monroe received 




STATUE OF JEFFERSON IN FRONT OF THE WHITE HOUSE- 

s «S 



66 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

scarcely any support at all, and even for the inferior 
office received only three votes. 

Three days before Jefferson retired from office the 
Embargo Act was repealed. 

Jefferson bade farewell to Washington March 4, 
1809, and retired to his country-seat at Monticello, 
Virginia, and expressed a great gratification at being 
able to exchange the tumult of politics for the quiet 
of retirement. 

In 1 819 he took part in founding the University 
of Virginia, and acted as its rector till his death; 
which occurred on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anni- 
versary of our Independence. John Adams died a 
few hours later on that very same day. There was 
a grand appropriateness in the time and manner of 
his death, which corresponded with the greatness of 
his life. He lived to an extreme age, scarcely par- 
ticipating in any of the weaknesses which generally 
attend it. His mind was clear and vigorous to the 
last; and, as if heaven desired to give some signal 
token of its approval, that day of all others which 
they would have chosen for their departure, was 
heaven's choice, for Jefferson and Adams will forever 
divide the peculiar glories of the statesmanship of 
the Revolution. The following epitaph, written by 
himself, is inscribed on his tombstone at Monticello: 
"Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, Author of the 
Declaration of Independence, of the Statute of Vir- 
ginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the 
University of Virginia." He was six feet two and 
one-half inches high, and possessed a well-developed 
frame. He married in 1772; his wife bringing him 
a large dowry in lands and slaves; but the large and 



JAMES MADISON. 67 

open hospitality with which he entertained friends 
and distinguished foreigners, left him a bankrupt at 
his death. He left one daughter. In religion he 
was a free-thinker. Slavery he considered an evil — 
morally and politically; in reference to it he said, 
"I tremble for my country when I remember that 
God is just." In 1848 his manuscripts were pur- 
chased by Congress, and printed. 



JAMES MADISON— 1809-1817. 

James Madison, the fourth President, was born 
in Virginia, March 16, 1 751 ; whither his father, an 
Englishman, had emigrated one hundred years before. 
He entered Princeton College, in New Jersey, in 
1769, and graduated in 1771, after which he studied 
law. He was elected a member of the Virginia 
Convention in 1776, and was a member of the Gen- 
eral Congress in 1779. From this period he was one 
of the most prominent men in the political history 
of the Republic. He was the most influential advo- 
cate of a Convention of all the States; and a delegate 
to that body in Philadelphia whose deliberations re- 
sulted in the abrogation of the old Articles of Con- 
federation and the formation of the Constitution of 
the United States. He was regarded as the chief 
framer of the Constitution, and his own arduous ser- 
vices during eight Presidential years show how well 
he could interpret, in all his executive acts, the 
Constitution in whose handiwork he had borne so 
large a share, 



68 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

He declined the office of Secretary of State when 
Jefferson resigned in 1793 under Washington's first 
administration, and continued to serve in Congress 
till 1797. He offered the Alien and Sedition laws, 
and was the author of the Virginia Resolutions of 
1798, which protested against the attempts to in- 
crease the power of the Federal Government by 
forced constructions of general clauses in the Con- 
stitution. He boldly asserted the claims of the 
United Colonies to the Western Territory, and to 
the free navigation of the Mississippi River. He 
was appointed Secretary of State by Jefferson in 
1801, and filled that office for eight years to the sat- 
isfaction of the people. 

In his Cabinet he continued Robert Smith as Sec- 
retary of State until March 11, 1811, when he 
appointed James Monroe of Virginia to the office. 
Albert Gallatin was continued as Secretary of the 
Treasury until February 9, 1814. William Eustis 
of Massachusetts was Secretary of War during his 
first term. John Armstrong of New York, James 
Monroe, and William H. Crawford successively 
filled the office during the second term. 

Madison took office at an epoch of gloom, depres- 
sion and discontent. Two months earlier Massa- 
chusetts had painted the general situation in very 
sombre tones. "Our agriculture," they said, "is 
discouraged; the fisheries abandoned; navigation for- 
bidden; our commerce at home restrained, if not 
annihilated; our commerce abroad cut off; our navy 
sold, dismantled, or degraded to the service of cut- 
ters or gunboats; the revenue extinguished; the course 
of justice interrupted, and the nation weakened by 



JAMES MADISON. 



69 



internal animosities and divisions, at the moment 
when it is unnecessarily and improvidently exposed 




JAMKS MADTSON. 

to war with Great Britain, France, and Spain." 
Though exaggerated by the warmth of party feeling, 
this statement was nearly true in the main. By the 



JO LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

people of the North-eastern States it was greatly 
doubted whether matters would experience any im- 
provement under Madison's administration, but his 
inaugural address had so suave and conciliatory a 
character, that most of his opponents were reassured 
and inclined to at least give him a trial. He was a 
man of very large political experience; his character 
was honorable and amiable; and having at different 
periods of his life been connected with both political 
parties, it was naturally supposed that he understood 
their conflicting views, and would be desirous of 
reconciling extreme opinions by the adoption of some 
middle course. Madison, however, resolved to fol- 
low the policy of Jefferson. He desired to avoid 
war with England, and sought by skilful diplomacy 
to avert the dangers presented by both France and 
England in their attitude with, neutrals. In May, 
1810, when the Non-intercourse Act had expired, 
Madison caused proposals to be made to both bel- 
ligerents, that if either would revoke its hostile 
edict, the Non-intercourse Act should be revived and 
enforced against the other nation. This Act had 
been passed by Congress as a substitute for the Em- 
bargo. France quickly accepted Madison's proposal, 
and received the benefits of the Act, and the direct 
result was to increase the growing hostility of Eng- 
land. From this time forward the negotiations had 
more the character of a diplomatic contest than an 
attempt to maintain peace. Both countries were 
upon their mettle, and early in 1811, Pinckney, the 
American minister to Great Britain, was recalled, 
and a year later a formal declaration of war was 
made by the United States. 



JAMES MADISON. 



7* 



Just prior to this, trie old issue, made by the Re- 
publican against Hamilton's scheme for a National 
Bank, was revived by the fact that the charter of the 
bank ceased March 4, 181 1, and an attempt was 
made to recharter it. A bill for this purpose was in- 
troduced into Congress, but postponed in the House 
by a vote of 65 to 64, 
while in the Senate 
it was rejected by 
the casting vote of 
the Vice-President, 
Clinton — this not- 
withstanding its 
provisions had been 
framed or approved 
by Gallatin, the 
Secretary of the 
Treasury. There- 
upon the bank 
wound up its busi- 
ness and ceased to 
act. The Federal- 
ists were all strong 
advocates of the 
it was so 
that it di- 
vided some of the 
Democrats who enjoyed a 
so far as the administration 
dent not caring for political quarrels at a time when 
war was threatened with a powerful foreign nation. 
The views of the Federalists on this question de- 
scended to the Whigs some years later, and this fact 



bank, and 
strong 




HENRY CLAY. 

loose rein in the contest 
was concerned, the Presi- 



72 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

led to the charges that the Whigs were but Federal- 
ists in disguise. 

The next Congress continued the large Demo- 
cratic majority, which promptly carried every admin- 
istration measure, as did the following, which met 
November 4, 181 1, Henry Clay, of Kentucky, then 
an ardent supporter of the policy of Madison, suc- 
ceeding to the House speakership. He had pre- 
viously served two short sessions in the Senate, and 
had acquired a high reputation as an able debater. 
He preferred the House at that period of life, be- 
lieving his powers better calculated to win fame in 
the more popular representative hall. 

On the quiet understanding that Madison would 
adopt a war policy, he was renominated for a second 
term. John Langdon was nominated for Vice-Presi- 
dent, but as he declined on account of age, Elbridge 
Gerry, of Massachusetts, took his place. A convention 
of the opposition, representing eleven States, was 
held in New York City, which nominated De Witt 
Clinton, with Jared Ingersoll, of Pennsylvania, for 
Vice-President. This was the first National Con- 
vention, partisan in character, and the Federalists 
have the credit of originating and carrying out the 
idea. The election resulted in the success of Mad- 
ison, who received 128 electoral votes to 89 for 
Clinton. De Witt Clinton was a nephew of George 
Clinton, Governor of New York State, and fourth 
Vice-President of the United States. 

Though factious strife had been somewhat rife, 
less attention was paid to politics than to the ap- 
proaching war. There were new Democratic leaders 



JAMES MADISON. y^ 

in the lower House, and none were more prominent 
than Clay of Kentucky, and Calhoun, Cheves, and 




DIC WITT CLINTON. 



Lowndes, all of South Carolina. The policy of 
Jefferson in reducing the army and navy was now 
greatly deplored, and the defenceless condition in 



74 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

which it left the country was the stated cause of the 
feuds which followed. Madison changed this policy 
at the earnest solicitation of Clay, Calhoun, and 
Ivowudes, who were the recognized leaders of the 
war party. He had held back, hoping that diplo- 
macy might avert a contest; but when once con- 
vinced that war was inevitable and even desirable 
under the circumstances, his official utterances were 
bold and free. He declared in a message that our 
flag was continually insulted on the high seas ; that 
the right of searching American vessels for British 
seamen was still in practice, and that thousands of 
American citizens had in this way been impressed 
into service on foreign ships ; that peaceful efforts at 
adjustment of the difficulties had proved abortive, 
and that the British ministry and British emissaries 
had actually been intriguing for the dismemberment 
of the Union. 

The Act declaring war was approved by the Presi- 
dent on June 18, 1812, and is remarkably short and 
comprehensive. It was drawn by William Pinckney, 
and was a soul-stirring message, but it did not rdly 
all the people as it should have done. Political 
jealousies were very great, and the frequent defeat^ 
of the Federalists, while they tended to greatly re- 
duce their numbers and weaken their power, seemed 
to strengthen their animosity, and they could see 
nothing good in any act of the administration. 

Four Federalist representatives in Congress went 
so far as to issue an address opposing the war, the 
way in which it had been declared, and denouncing 
it as unjust. Some of the New England States re- 



JAMES MADISON. 75 

fused to support it with their militia, and Massachu- 
setts sent peace memorials to Congress. 

A peace party was formed with a view to array 
the religious sentiment of the country against the 
war, and societies with similar objects were organized 
by the more radical of the Federalists. 

This opposition culminated in the assembling of 
a convention at Hartford, at which delegates were 
present from all the New England States. They 
sat for three weeks with closed doors, and issued an 
address. It was charged by the Democrats that the 
real object of the convention was to negotiate a sep- 
arate treaty of peace, on behalf of New England, 
with Great Britain, but this charge was as warmly 
denied. The exact truth has never been discovered, 
the fears of the participants of threatened trials for 
treason closing their mouths, if their professions 
were false. The treaty of Ghent, which was con- 
cluded on December 14, 18 14, prevented other action 
by the Hartford Convention. 

When we plunged into the 181 2 War with Great 
Britain, our navy consisted of but twelve vessels and 
our army was an undisciplined body, officered by 
Revolutionary soldiers, too old to be efficient. On 
the sea we whipped her all around. Out of the 17 
fights which occurred during the two years the war 
lasted, we won thirteen. " Don't give up the ship!" 
was the battle-cry of the American sailor. 

On the land we did not fare so well. We made 
several attempts on Canada, but they all failed. 

England sent over 4000 men, who took Washington 



76 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

and buiued the town with all its public buildings. 
This act of shame was done under strict orders from 
home. It was intended to fill us with dread of what 
might be expected. A second force was sent to New 
Orleans, where General Jackson routed them with a 
loss of half its men. This ended the war. Peace 
was made in 1815. 

In February, 1815, the welcome and unexpected 
news of Peace reached Congress, which adjourned 
March 15, 18 15, after repealing the Acts which had 
been necessary in preparing for and carrying on the 
war. This peace marks the final extinction of trie 
Federalist party. 

The position of New England in the war is ex- 
plained by her exposed position. Such of the militia 
as served, endured great hardships, and they were 
constantly called from their homes to meet new dan- 
gers. The coast towns of Massachusetts were sub- 
jected to constant assault from the British navy, and 
the people felt that they were defenceless. It was 
on their petition that the legislature of Massachusetts 
finally, by a vote of 226 to 67, adopted the report 
favoring the calling of the Hartford Convention. 
These delegates were' all members of the Federal 
party, and their suspected designs and action made 
the u Hartford Convention" a by word and reproach 
in the mouths of Democratic orators for years there- 
after. It gave to the Democrats, as did the entire 
history of the war, the prestige of superior patriotism, 
and they profited by it as long as the memory of the 
War of 181 2 was fresh. Indeed, directly after the 
war, all men seemed to keep in constant view the 
reluctance of the Federalists to support the war, and 



JAMES MADISON. 77 

their almost open hostility to it in New England. 
Peace brought prosperity and plenty, but not obliv- 




WHUAM H. CRAWFORD. 

ion of the old political issues, and this was the begin- 
ning of the end of the Federal party. Its decay 
thereafter was rapid and constant. 



78 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

The next four Congresses continued Democratic. 
Clay had taken part in negotiating the treaty, and 
on his return was for the third time elected Speaker. 
Though 65 Federalists had been elected, but 10 votes 
were given to Federal candidates for Speaker, this 
party now showing a strong, and under the circum- 
stances, a very natural desire to rub out party lines. 
The internal taxes and the postage rates were reduced. 

Louisiana was admitted to the Union on April 3, 
181 2; and Indiana came in on December 11, 1816. 

President Madison, in his message to Congress, 
urged a revision of the tariff, and acting on his 
recommendation what was at the time called a pro- 
tective tariff was passed. Calhoun then supported 
it, while Clay proclaimed that protection must no 
longer be secondary to revenue, but of primary im- 
portance. The rates fixed, however, were insuf- 
ficient, and our manufacturers were soon crowded out 
by excessive importations of foreign goods. 

Peace brought with it another exchange of posi- 
tions. President Madison, although he had vetoed a 
bill to establish a National Bank in 181 5, was now 
(in 1 8 16) anxious for the establishment of such an 
institution. Clay had also changed his views, and 
claimed that the experiences of the war showed the 
necessity for a national currency. The bill met with 
strong opposition from a few Democrats and nearly 
all of the Federalists, but it passed and was signed by 
the President. 

A bill to promote internal improvements, advo- 
cated by Clay, was at first favored by Madison, but 



JAMES MONROE. jg 

his mind changed and he vetoed the measure — the 
first of its kind passed by Congress. 

When the Democrats held their caucus for the 
nomination of candidates to succeed Madison and 
Gerry, it was understood that the retiring officers and 
their confidential friends favored James Monroe, of 
Virginia. Their wishes were carried out, but not 
without a struggle, Wm. H. Crawford of Georgia 
receiving 54 votes against 65 for Monroe. The 
Democrats, opposed to Virginia's domination in the 
politics of the country, directed the effort against 
Monroe. Daniel D. Tompkins of New York was 
nominated by the Democrats for Vice-President. The 
Federalists named Rufus King of New York, but in 
the election which followed he received but 24 out 
of 217 electoral votes. The Federalists divided their 
votes for Vice-President. 

Madison retired from public life on March 4, 18 17, 
and went home to his farm, where he spent the 
remainder of his life. He died at Montpelier, Vir- 
ginia, on June 28, 1836, aged 85 years. 



JAMES MONROE— 1817-1825. 

James Monroe, the fifth President, was born in 
Virginia, April 28, 1758. His earliest American 
ancestor was an officer in the army of Charles I, who 
emigrated to Virginia in 1652. It was a significant 
fact that the persecutions of the Non-Conformists 
peopled New England with the Pilgrims and Puri- 
tans ; while the establishment of the Commonwealth 



8o 



LIVES OF I HE PRESIDENTS. 



under Cromwell drove the Cavaliers to Virginia; and 
to their united and harmonious efforts we owe the 
establishment of our Republic. 




JAMES MONROE. 



During the Revolutionary War, Monroe served for 
some time in the army, which he quitted after the 
battle of Monmouth, in 1778, rejoining it when his 



JAMES MONROE. 8 1 

own State was invaded in 1781. He studied law 
under Jefferson, and when he was but 25 years old 
was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress. 
He represented us at Paris, and became Governor of 
his State when he returned to America. Mr. Jeffer- 
son sent him in 1802 as Envoy to France to nego- 
tiate for a right of depot on the Mississippi. But he 
attempted a far more important measure, for within 
fourteen days from his arrival in Paris, he had pur- 
chased the entire territory of Louisiana, the most 
important and diplomatic act in the history of this 
Republic. 

He was inaugurated on March 4, 18 17. His cabi- 
net was composed of men of rare political distinction, 
even in that day of great men ; yet these men were 
universally accepted as great without regard to their 
localities. Among them were John Quincy Adams, 
Secretary of State; William H. Crawford, Secretary 
of the Treasury; John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War; 
Benjamin Crowninshield, Secretary of the Navy; and 
William Wirt, Attorney-General. ' All were avowed 
Democrats, except Adams, and he had for some years 
forsaken the Federalists. Monroe, on his first em- 
bassy to Paris, was so strongly attached to the princi- 
ples of the French Revolution that heiwas thought 
to have neglected the interests of the Government, 
and was recalled by Washington. On his second 
mission to Paris, in 1802-3, ne conducted, with Liv- 
ingston, the negotiations for the cession of Louisiana; 
and when in London, in 1806, he concluded, with 
William Pinckney, that treaty concerning the dis- 
puted matters between England and America which 
Jefferson refused to allow. He was a man of good 
6 



82 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

judgment, of cautious and prudent views, and of 
untiring perseverance in the conduct of business; 
but in original genius he was inferior to his prede- 




JOHN CALDWELI, CALHOUN. 



cessors. In character, his amiability was equal to 
that of Madison. He was universally respected, and 
his inaugural address was considered satisfactory by 
most sections of the country. Shortly after his 



JAMES MONROE. 83 

accession, he made a three months' tour through a 
large part of the Union, passing from Maine, in the 
east, to Detroit, in the west. Jefferson disapproved 
of these progresses, as having too monarchical a 
character; but Washington had in practice given 
them his sanction. 

Monroe found the manufacturing interests of the 
country in a very embarrassed state, owing to the 
competition of British goods, which, by reason of the 
great improvement of machinery, in England, could 
be much more cheaply produced there than here, and 
which, but for the duties it was considered necessary 
to impose on them, would probably have extinguished 
the native manufactures altogether,, The industrial 
arts, in which we now hold so conspicuous a place, 
were in a very rude condition in 1817. During the 
colonial days of English-America, all manufactures 
there were not merely discountenanced, but actually 
forbidden, by the British Parliament. The working 
of iron promised at one time to be a great source of 
profit to the New Englanders; but it was prohibited 
by the Imperial Government. So also with regard 
to so slight a matter as the manufacture of hats: 
everything which could interfere with English traders 
was suppressed. Shortly after our Independence, 
attempts were made to establish manufactories of 
various textile fabrics; but, owing to the dearness of 
labor, the want of capital, and the absence of ma- 
chinery, very little was effected. The imposition of 
the embargo at the close of 1807 was the first circum- 
stance which gave a decided encouragement to our 
manufacturers. The people were compelled to fall 
back upon their own resources, and, notwithstanding 



84 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

a few failures at the beginning, considerable progress 
was made in a surprisingly short time. The value 
of native manufactured goods, as early as 1810, was 
$170,000,000; in 1814, it was probably $200,000,000. 
The exclusion of foreign commodities during the 
war had the natural effect of enhancing the price of 
those which were produced at home; and our manu- 
facturers were beginning to drive a good trade, when 
the restoration of peace interfered with their pros- 
pects. The country was inundated with British and 
other European productions; and for some while, 
until legislation of a protectionist character came to 
the assistance of the native manufacturer, all indus- 
tries of this kind sank considerably. From 1818, 
however, they revived, and thenceforward entered 
on a stage of progressive development. 

While manufactures suffered, agriculture enjoyed 
a period of great prosperity. The number of persons 
engaged in agricultural pursuits in the year 1820 was 
2,070,646; and the value of all American products 
(including cotton, tobacco, flour and rice), exported 
during the year 1823, was $37 > 646,000, The vast 
provinces of the West were being colonized by fami- 
lies from the Eastern States, and by emigrants from 
Great Britain and Ireland, who, arriving in large 
numbers every year, added materially to the popula- 
tion of the Republic, and widened the area of culti- 
vated land. Within ten years of the peace — which 
brings us to about the close of Monroe's Administra- 
tion — five new States had grown up in those wild 
domains which had only recently been hunting- 
grounds for the red man. England had for more 
than a hundred years contributed scarcely anything 



JAMES MONROE. 85 

to the peopling of America. As America wanted 
what England had in excess, we were immense 
gainers by these large immigrations, and thencefor- 
ward made progress with amazing rapidity. In De- 
cember, 1817, the Mississippi Territory was divided, 
and the western portion admitted into the Union as 
the State of Mississippi, while the eastern remained 
for a short time longer as a dependent province, 
under the title of the Alabama Territory. The latter 
included a portion of Georgia, which was given up 
for a consideration. 

Monroe's first inaugural leaned toward Clay's 
scheme of internal improvements, but questioned its 
constitutionality. Clay was next to Jefferson the 
most original 'of all our statesmen and politicians. 
He was prolific in measures, and almost resistless in 
their advocacy. From a political standpoint he was 
the most direct author of the War of 181 2, for his 
advocacy mainly brought it to the issue of arms, 
which, through him and Calhoun, were substituted 
for diplomacy. Calhoun then stood in broader view 
before the country than since. His sectional pride 
and bias had been rarely aroused, and, like Clay, he 
seemed to act for the country as an entirety. 

From an early period in the century, the Spanish 
colonies in the South had been engaged in insurrec- 
tionary wars against the mother country, and some 
had succeeded in establishing their independence. 
It was the obvious policy of our Government to en- 
courage these young Republics, and thus destroy the 
influence of Spain. Monroe very emphatically 
asserted the dogma that the monarchical form of 
government ought not to exist on this Continent— a 



86 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

political principle which under the designation of the 
" Monroe Doctrine," has been widely received from 
that time to the present. In his Message in 1823, 
he asserted the u Monroe Doctrine " in these terms: 
" We owe it to candor and to the amicable relations 
between the United States and the European Powers 
to declare that we should consider any attempt on 
their part to extend their system to any portion of 
this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety." 

In 1817 the Seminole Indians, joined by a few of 
the Creeks, and by some runaway negroes, began to 
commit depredations on the frontiers of Georgia and 
Alabama. General Gaines was despatched to sup- 
press these risings, and to remove every Indian from 
the territory which the Creeks had ceded to the 
United States. He was overmatched in numbers, 
and General Jackson was sent to his aid. This vigor- 
ous officer raised a large force of Tennessee horse- 
men, in addition to the regular army, and inarched 
into the Indian territory, which he speedily overran. 

In 181 9, a treaty was made by which Spain ceded 
us both East and West Florida, together with the 
adjacent islands. Florida was erected into a Terri- 
tory in February, 182 1, and in the following month 
General Jackson was appointed its first governor. 

The recognition of the Spanish- American Repub- 
lics by the United States followed. In 18 19, the 
southern portion of Missouri was formed into a Ter- 
ritorial Government under the name of Arkansas ; 
and in December of the same year Alabama was 
admitted into the Union. Early in 1820, Maine, 
which had for nearly 200 years been a portion of 




OSCEOLA, CHIEF OP THE SEMINOEES. 



*7 



88 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

Massachusetts, was severed from that State and suf- 
fered to enjoy a distinct existence as a State of our 
Union. Maine had originally been settled by the 




INDIAN WARRIORS. 



French, and was long a ground of contention between 
that nation and the English. The Colonial Govern- 
ment of Massachusetts forcibly assumed jurisdiction 
about 1652, and in 1677 purchased the whole prov- 



JAMES MONROE. 89 

ince. The people of Maine, however, though as well 
disposed towards the Republican cause during the 
War of Independence as any other part of the Fed- 
eration, did not approve of their connection with 
the State which had its capital at Boston. They 
desired to follow their own ways, and from 1820 
downwards they have enjoyed that wish. 

Missouri applied for admission to the Union, and 
this demand was made the occasion of a violent 
debate in Congress, on the vexed question of slavery. 
A Bill was introduced into Congress, containing a 
provision which forbade the existence of slavery in 
Missouri, when that Territory should be constituted 
as a State. The subject was fiercely argued during 
the whole session; the country caught the excite- 
ment, and the usual cry of disruption was raised. 
When Secession at last came, in 1861, it was no new 
idea: it had been threatened again and again — now 
by the North-east, and now by the South, according 
as the objects of either seemed imperilled. The divi- 
sion between these two great sections was strongly 
marked — in soil, in climate, in political institutions, 
in social customs, and in material interests; and the 
battle never raged more hotly, as far as language was 
concerned, than during this period. The North- 
eastern States, which had put an end to negro bond- 
age among themselves, were strongly opposed to any 
extension of the detestable system into States about 
to be admitted to the Union. The South was equally 
desirous of widening the area of African servitude, 
in order that in the Senate there might be a majority 
of States pledged to support the custom, together 
with all those interests which were bound up in its 



go LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

existence. The Missourians themselves were in- 
clined to go with the South ; and, having refused to 
adopt a clause for the prohibition of slavery, the 
Northern States obstructed their admission into the 
Union. Thus the battle hung : the North taking 
its stand upon the cruel and immoral character of 
slavery ; the South maintaining that, even if objec- 
tionable in itself, it was part of the existing order of 
things, and could not be suddenly abolished, or even 
curtailed, without serious danger to the whole social 
fabric. The slave trade had been suppressed for 
several years ; but slaves were bred at home, and 
sold by one State to another. The Southern States 
in this way produced a good many slaves, and found 
a profit in disposing of them to other parts of the 
country. Missouri, wishing to share in these gains, 
violently resisted the restriction which the Northern 
members of Congress desired to impose, and threat- 
ened in 1 819 to constitute itself a sovereign and 
entirely independent State, if not admitted to the 
Union on its own terms. The question was settled 
by a compromise on February 28, 1 821, in accordance 
with which slavery was to be tolerated in Missouri, 
but prohibited in all other parts of the Union north 
and west of the northern limits of Arkansas ; and 
upon this understanding Missouri, on August 21, 
1820, was admitted to the Union as its twenty-fourth 
member. Such was the "Missouri Compromise," 
which will appear again in our history, as a source 
of dispute and recrimination. 

This parting of the Federation into two divisions, 
with distinct and opposing interests, seemed to Jef- 
ferson a danger of a very menacing kind. He was 



JAMES MONROE. 9 1 

not an admirer of slavery, though he did not clearly 
see his way to getting rid of it ; and he was too 
wise and patriotic a citizen to desire a dissolution of 
the Union which he had done so much to create. 
He considered the proposed action of Congress, in 
imposing regulations on the several States with 
regard to the extension of slavery, as grossly uncon- 
stitutional. But the idea of a line of geographical 
demarcation, involving a different system of politics 
and morals, he feared would gather force with time, 
reappear again and again, and in the end produce so 
deadly a feeling of mutual hate that separation 
would become preferable to eternal discord. His 
anticipations were disastrously realized forty-one 
years later. 

The year 1820 marked a period of financial dis- 
tress in the country. The army was reduced, and 
the general expenses of the departments cut down, 
despite which measures of economy the Congress 
deemed it necessary to authorize the President to 
contract for a loan of $5,000,000. Distress was the 
cry of the day ; relief the general demand. The 
banks failed, money vanished, instalments were com- 
ing due which could not be met, and Congress was 
saluted by the arrival of memorials from all the new 
States praying for relief to the purchaser of the 
public lands. The President referred to it in his 
Message and Congress passed a measure of relief by 
changing the system to cash sales instead of credit, 
reducing the price of the lands, and allowing 
present debtors to apply payments already made to 
portions of the land purchased, relinquishing the 
remainder. Applications were made at that time 



g 2 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

for the establishment of the pre-emptive system, but 
without effect ; the new States continued to press 
the question and finally prevailed, so that now ihe 
pre-emptive principle has become a fixed part of our 
land system, permanently incorporated with it, and 
to the equal advantage of the settler and the Govern- 
ment. 

During the discussion of the Missouri question, 
the President and Vice-President were re-elected for 
another term of four years. The second election 
of Monroe, in 1820, was accomplished without a 
contest. Out of 231 electoral votes, but one was cast 
against him, and that for John Quincy Adams. Mr. 
Tompkins, the candidate for Vice-President, was 
only a little less fortunate, there being 14 scattering 
votes against him. The Federal party was now 
nearly extinct. Although it still counted several 
members capable of making considerable opposition 
in Congress, it was devoid of all effective organiza- 
tion, and had little influence in the country generally. 
The policy of Monroe had been popular ; his adminis- 
tration had been successful ; and the Democrats had 
no difficulty in carrying him again into power. 
Two measures of his government were particularly 
well received by the people of the United States. 
One of these was an Act for making- provision for 
the surviving officers and soldiers of the Revolution 
— an Act which was subsequently extended, so as to 
include the widow's and children of those who had 
already departed ; the second was an arrangement, 
made with Great Britain in October of the same 
year, by which we were allowed to share with Eng- 
lish subjects in the fisheries of Newfoundland. It 



JAMES MONROE. 



93 



was at this period also that the boundary of the 
United States towards Canada, from the Lake of the 
Woods to the Rocky Mountains, was defined. 

The remaining events of Monroe's Presidency are 
neither numerous nor weighty. 

The revision of the tariff, with a view to the pro- 
tection of home industry, and to the establishment 
of what was then called ik The American System," 
was one of the large subjects before Congress at the 
session of 1823-24, and was the regular commence- 
ment of the heated debates on that question which 
afterwards ripened into a serious difficulty between 
the Federal Government and some of the Southern 
States. The Presidential election being then de- 
pending, the subject became tinctured with party 
politics. The protection of domestic industry not 
being among the powers granted, was looked for in 
the incidental ; and denied by the strict construction- 
ists to be exercised for the direct purpose of pro- 
tection ; but admitted by all at that time, and ever 
since the first Tariff Act of 1789, to be an incident to 
the revenue-raising power, and an incident to be re- 
garded in the exercise of that power. Revenue the 
object, protection the incident, had been the rule in 
the earlier tariffs ; now that rule was sought to be 
reversed, and to make protection the object of the 
law, and revenue the incident. Henry Clay was the 
leader in the proposed revision and the champion of 
the American System ; he was supported in the 
House by many able and effective speakers, who 
based their arguments on the general distress then 
alleged to be prevalent in the country. Daniel Web- 
ster was the leading speaker on the other side, and 



94 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

disputed the universality of the distress which had 
been described ; and contested the propriety of high 
or prohibitory duties, in the present active and 
intelligent state of the world, to stimulate industry 
and manufacturing enterprise. 

The bill was carried by a close vote in both Houses. 
Though brought forward avowedly for the protec- 
tion of domestic manufactures, it was not entirely 
supported on that ground ; an increase of revenue 
being the motive with some, the public debt then 
being nearly ninety millions. An increased pro- 
tection to the products of several States, as lead in 
Missiouri and Illinois, hemp in Kentucky, iron in 
Pennsylvania, wool in Ohio and New York, com- 
manded many votes for the bill ; and the im- 
pending Presidential election had its influence in its 
favor. 

Two of the candidates, Adams and Clay, voted 
for and avowedly supported General Jackson, who 
voted for the bill, and was for it as tending to give a 
home supply of the articles necessary in time of war, 
and as raising revenue to pay the public debt; Craw- 
ford opposed it, and Calhoun had withdrawn as a 
Presidential candidate. The Southern planting 
States were dissatisfied, believing that the new bur- 
dens upon imports, which it imposed, fell upon the 
producers of the exports, and tended to enrich one 
section of the Union at the expense of another. 
The attack and support of the bill took much of a 
sectional aspect : Virginia, the two Carolinas, 
Georgia, and some others, being against it ; Penn- 
sylvania, New York, Ohio, and Kentucky being for 
it. Massachusetts, which up to this time had no 



JAMES MONROE. 95 

small influence in commerce, voted, with all except 
one member, against it. With this sectional aspect, 
a tariff for protection also began to assume a politi- 
cal aspect, being taken under the care of the party 
afterwards known as Whig. The bill was approved 
by President Monroe; a proof that that careful and 
strict constructionist of the Constitution did not con- 
sider it as deprived of its revenue character by the 
degree of protection which it extended. 

Having now filled the Presidential chair for nearly 
eight years, Monroe determined to follow the patri- 
otic precedent set by Washington and Jefferson and 
Madison, and to retire from any further candidature. 

In the election of 1824 four candidates were before 
the people for the office of President — General Jack- 
son, John Quincy Adams, William H. Crawford and 
Henry Clay. None of them received a majority of 
the 261 electoral votes, and the election devolved 
upon the House of Representatives. John C. Cal- 
houn had a majority of the electoral votes for the 
office of Vice-President, and was elected. Adams 
was elected President by the House of Representa- 
tives, who voted by States, from the three candidates 
who had the most votes, although General Jackson was 
the choice of the people, having received the greatest 
number of votes at the general election. The elec- 
tion of Adams was perfectly constitutional, and as 
such fully submitted to by the people; but it was a 
violation of the "voice of the people" principle; 
and that violation was equally rebuked. All the 
representatives who voted against the will of their 
constituents lost their favor, and disappeared from 
public life. The representation in the House of 



96 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

Representatives was largely changed at the next 
election, and presented a full opposition to the new 
President. Mr. Adams himself was injured by it, 
and at the ensuing Presidential election was beaten 
by General Jackson more than two to one. 

Clay, who took the lead in the House for Mr. 
Adams, and afterwards took upon himself the mis- 
sion of reconciling the people to his election in a 
series of public speeches, was himself crippled in 
the effort, lost his place in the Democratic party, and 
joined the Whigs (then called the National Repub- 
licans). The Democratic principle was victor over 
the theory of the Constitution, and beneficial results 
ensued. It vindicated the people in their right and 
their power. It re-established parties upon the basis 
of principle, and drew anew party lines, then almost 
obliterated under the fusion of parties during the 
"era of good feeling," and the efforts of leading 
men to make personal parties for themselves. It 
showed the conservative power of our Government 
to lie in the people, more than in its constituted 
authorities. It showed that they were capable of 
exercising the function of self-government, and 
lastly, it assumed the supremacy of the Democracy 
for a long time. The Presidential election of 1824 
is remarkable under another aspect — its results cau- 
tioned all public men against future attempts to 
govern Presidential elections in the House of Rep- 
resentatives; and it put an end to the practice of 
caucus nominations for the Presidency by members 
of Congress. They were dropped, and a different 
mode adopted — that of party nominations by con- 
ventions of delegates from the States. 






JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 97 

In the spirit of pure democracy, Monroe, in re- 
tiring to his residence in Virginia, accepted the office 
of justice of the peace. He finally removed to the 
residence of his son-in-law, in New York city, where, 
at the age of 73, he peacefully breathed his last on 
the anniversary of the birth of the nation, being the' 
third President who had departed on that memorable 
day. He is buried in Richmond, Virginia. 

The eight years of his Presidency were known as 
the era of good feeling. We had conquered our 
enemies by land and sea, at home and abroad, and a 
long and glorious period of peace and prosperity had 
come to the young Republic. In the beginning of 
his first term, he visited all the Eastern and Western 
States. It was a proper tribute to pay to millions 
of men who had never seen their favorite chief; and 
wherever he went he was received with tokens of 
affectionate recognition. The sharp and angry pas- 
sions of other days were allayed. He had not been 
elected by the triumph of a party — he was chosen 
to lead the nation, and he did it with the calmness, 
impartiality and integrity of a great and good man. 
Under his administration the whole country pros- 
pered. 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS— 1825-1829. 

John Quincy Adams, the sixth President, son of 
John Adams, the second President, was born in Mas- 
sachusetts, July 11, 1767. Born while Faneuil Hall 
was ringing with the fiery eloquence of his father, 
and of Samuel Adams his relative, he breathed from 
7 



gS LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

his infancy the atmosphere of patriotism and states- 
manship. In his eleventh year he went to France 
with his father, who had been sent as Minister. He 
went to Russia as private secretary to Chief-Justice 
Dana, then the American Minister. He returned 
home, entered Harvard College, and after graduating 
studied law and opened an office for its practice in 
Boston. In 1794 Washington appointed him Min- 
ister to the Hague. Afterwards he was elected to 
the Senate. When the second war with England 
was approaching, President Madison instructed him 
to leave St. Petersburg and join the other commis- 
sioners sent to negotiate the Peace Treaty at Ghent. 
On Monroe's accession to the Presidency, in 18 17, 
he became his Secretary of State, which office he 
held when he was himself elected President. 

He was inaugurated March 4, 1825. He called 
to his Cabinet Henry Clay as Secretary of State. 

In his inaugural address, Mr. Adams observed : 
"Since the period of our Independence, a population 
of four millions has multiplied to twelve ; a territory 
bounded by the Mississippi has been extended from 
sea to sea ; and States have been admitted to the 
Union in numbers nearly equal to those of the first 
Federation. Treaties of peace, amity, and commerce 
have been concluded with the principal dominions 
of the earth. All the purposes of human association 
have been accomplished as effectually as under any 
other Government on the globe, and at a cost little 
exceeding in a whole generation the expenditure of 
other nations in a single year." The great parties 
of Federalists and Democrats, which had so long 



JOHN Q UINC Y A DAMS. 



99 



divided the country (by a conclusion more sanguine 
than correct) he pronounced to be extinct. 




JOHN OUINCY ADAMS. 



Adams was accused of having made a corrupt 
bargain with Henry Clay to defeat the selection of 



IOO LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

Andrew Jackson in the House by the promise of 
making him his Secretary of State. This office had 
come to be looked upon as the stepping-stone to the 
Presidency. Credence was given to this accusation 
when Clay received his appointment. Clay angrily 
denied that any such bargain ever was entered into. 

In his inaugural address, the chief topic was that 
of internal national improvement by the Federal 
Government. This declared policy of the adminis- 
tration furnished a ground of opposition against 
Adams, and went to the reconstruction of parties on 
the old line of strict, or loose, construction of the 
Constitution. It was clear from the beginning that 
the new administration was to have a settled and 
strong opposition, and that founded in principles of 
government. Men of the old school, survivors of 
the contest of the Adams and Jefferson times, divided 
accordingly — the Federalists going for Adams, the 
Republicans against him, with the mass of the 
younger generation. The Senate by a decided ma- 
jority, and the House by a strong minority, were 
opposed to the policy of the new President. 

A bill was introduced to do away with all inter- 
mediate agencies in the election of President and 
Vice-President and give the election to the direct 
vote of the people. But the amendments did not re- 
ceive the requisite support of two-thirds of either the 
Senate or the House. This movement was not of a 
partisan character ; it was equally supported and op- 
posed by Senators and Represer tatives of both 
parties. Substantially the same plan was recom- 
mended later by President Jackson, 



John q i vxc 1 ' A dams. 



IOI 



A fruitless attempt was now made to limit the 
President's appointing power by the Democrats try- 
ing to pass a tenure of office bill, as applicable to 
Government employees and office-holders; it pro- 
vided, "that in all nominations made by the Presi- 
dent to the Senate, to fill vacancies occasioned by an 
exercise of the President's power to remove from 
office, the fact of the removal shall be stated to the 
Senate at the same time that the nomination is 
made, with a statement of the reasons for which 
such officer may have been removed." It was also 
sought at the same time to amend the Constitution 
to prohibit the appointment of any member of Con- 
gress to any Federal office of trust or profit, during 
the period for which he was elected; the design 
being to make the members wholly independent of 
the Executive, and not subservient to the latter, and 
incapable of receiving favors in the form of bestowals 
of official patronage. 

The tariff of 1828 is an era in our political 
legislation; from it the doctrine of "nullification" 
originated, and from that date began a serious di- 
vision between the North and the South. This 
tariff law was projected in the interest of the woolen 
manufacturers, but ended by including all manu- 
facturing interests. The passage of this measure 
was brought about, not because it was favored by a 
majority, but because of political exigencies. In the 
coining election, Adams, who favored the "American 
System," supported by Clay was opposed by General 
Jackson. This tariff was made an administration 
measure, and became an isssue in the canvass. The 



102 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

New England States, which had formerly favored 
free trade, on account of their commercial interests, 
changed their policy, and, led by Webster, became 
advocates of the protective system. The question of 
protective tariff had not only become political, but 
sectional. The Southern States, as a section, were 
arrayed against the system, though prior to 1816 they 
favored it. In fact these tariff bills had become a 
regular feature in our Presidential elections, starting 
in 1816 and followed up in 1820-24 and now in 1828, 
with successive augmentations of duties; the last 
being often pushed as a party measure, and with the 
visible purpose of influencing the Presidential elec- 
tion. General Jackson was elected, receiving 178 
electoral votes to 83 received by John Quincy Adams. 
John C. Calhoun of South Carolina was elected 
as Vice-President. 

Adams retired from the Presidency, March 4, 1829. 
He was returned to Congress by the district in which 
he lived and continued to represent it for nineteen 
years, till his death. He died of paralysis on February 
23, 1848, having been seized two days previously 
while attending the debates of Congress. At 80 years 
of age he was called "The old man eloquent." His 
mind was a store-house of facts. His patriotism and 
love of country were ardent. He lacked tact as a 
politician, and did not understand the sentiments and 
feelings of the common mind. He had no gift for 
winning friends, his cold manners and his disregard 
for the opinions of others made him enemies who 
succeeded in preventing his re-election. 

He is buried at Quincy, Massachusetts. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 103 



ANDREW JACKSON— 1829-1837. 

Andrew Jackson, our sixth President, was born 
in North Carolina, March 15, 1767. He was the son 
of an Irishman who emigrated to this eon 11 try in 
1765, and died poor in 1767. His education was of 
the most limited kind and he showed no fondness 
for books. Had his parents delayed their emigration 
much longer, he would have lost what he called 
"the great privilege of being born on American 
soil.'' With an elder brother, at the age of thirteen, 
he joined the militia after the terrible massacre by 
Tarleton, and became a prisoner in 1781. After the 
war, and the death of his brother, he worked hard 
to support his mother, who had been left utterly 
destitute. Removing to Charleston, he studied law, 
and before he was 20 years old was admitted to the 
bar. From that time began his successful career as 
a lawyer in Tennessee, whither he had emigrated. 
In 1796 he was elected to Congress, where he served 
during the last year of Washington's second term. 
He gained so much popularity that the following 
year he was elected to the Senate. He left the 
Senate to become a judge of the Supreme Court of 
Tennessee. He was diverted from civil pursuits to 
the army, where he displayed the highest abilities 
as a general, both in organizing and conducting 
troops. The victory at New Orleans on Janu- 
ary 8, 18 1 5, ending in the entire defeat of the 
British army, completed Washington's work of 
freeing this country, and opened the way to the 
Presidency. In 1829 ne became President, and 
>vas re-elected to continue his administration till 



104 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

1837. With very few exceptions, no soldier or states- 
man has won the admiration of his country by 
nobler deeds, or established a fairer claim to its grat- 
itude for his patriotism and unspotted integrity in 
his administration of public affairs. The people 
believed him to be fearless and honest; his political 
opponents declared he was only stupid and stubborn. 
He that as it may, he acted up to his sense of duty, 
and no considerations could induce him to de- 
sert it. 

He was inaugurated on March 4, 1829, ail( ^ called 
John Van Buren of New York to his Cabinet as 
Secretary of State, where he remained only two years. 
He had many changes in his Cabinet. It was Wil- 
liam L,. Marcy, a Senator from New York, who used 
the celebrated expression, "To the victors belong the 
spoils," so often erroneously attributed to Jackson. 
Jackson believed in it, and acted upon it; he made 
more removals in one year than did all the other 
Presidents in the preceding forty years. Early in 
Monroe's administration, in the "era of good feel- 
ing," Jackson wrote him in these words: "Now is 
the time to exterminate that monster, called party 
spirit. By selecting [for cabinet officers] characters 
most conspicuous for their probity, virtue, capacity, 
and firmness, without regard to party, you will go 
far to, if not entirely, eradicate those feelings which, 
on former occasions, threw so many obstacles in the 
way of government. The chief magistrate of a great 
and powerful nation should never indulge in party 
feelings. His conduct should be liberal and disin- 
terested; always bearing in mind that he acts for 
the whole and not a part of the community." With 



io6 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

new times and new men the above good advice was 
forgotten, or possibly had to be ignored. 

The election of Jackson was a triumph of demo- 
cratic principle, and an assertion of the people's 
right to govern themselves. That principle had 
been violated in the Presidential election in the 
House of Representatives in the session of 1824-25; 
and the sanction, or rebuke, of that violation was a 
question in the whole canvass. It was also a tri- 
umph over the high protective policy, and the 
Federal internal improvement policy, and the loose 
construction of the Constitution; and of the Democ- 
racy over the Federalists, then called National Re- 
publicans; and was the re-establishment of parties 
on principle, according to the landmarks of the early 
years of the Government. 

The short session of 1829-30 was rendered famous 
by the long and earnest debates in the Senate on the 
doctrine of nullification, as it was then called. It 
started with a proposition to limit the sales of the 
public lauds to those then in the market, and to 
suspend the surveys of the public lands. The effect 
of such a resolution, if carried into effect, would 
have been to check emigration to the new States in 
the West, and to check the growth and settlement 
of these States and Territories. It was warmly op- 
posed by Western members; and during the debate, 
Webster referred to the famous ordinance of 1787 for 
the government of the North-western Territory, and 
especially the anti-slavery clause which it contained. 

Kentucky and Ohio were instanced as examples, 
and the superior improvement and population of 
Ohio were attributed to its exemption from the evils 



ANDRE W JACKSON. 1Q y 

of slavery by Webster. This was an excitable sub- 
ject, and the more so because the wounds of the 




ANDREW JACKSON. 



Missouri controversy, in which the North was the 
undisputed aggressor, were still tender. Mr. Hayne 
from South Carolina, representing Calhoun, the 



108 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

Vice-President, answered with warmth and resented 
as a reflection upon the Slave States this disadvan- 
tageous comparison. This brought about the great 
debate, which is given in the school readers, and 
which we do not think it necessary to here repeat. 

The President called attention to the expiration, 
in 1836, of the charter granted to the Bank of the 
United States. He doubted the constitutionality 
and expediency of the law creating the bank, and 
was opposed to a renewal of the charter. His view 
of the matter was that, if such an institution was 
deemed a necessity, it should be made a national 
one, in the sense of being founded on the credit of 
the Government and its revenues, and not a corpo- 
ration independent from and not a part of the Gov- 
ernment. The House of Representatives favored the 
renewal of the charter. 

Thus was the "War of the Bank " begun in Con- 
gress, and in the public press; and openly at the 
instance of the bank itself, which set itself up as a 
power, and struggled for continued existence, by a 
demand for renewal of its charter. It allied itself 
to the political power opposed to the President, 
joined in all their schemes of protective tariff and 
national internal improvement, and became the head 
of the American system. Its moneyed and political 
power, numerous interested affiliations, and control 
over other banks and fiscal institutions, was great 
and extensive, and a power which was exercised 
and made to be felt during the struggle to such a 
degree that it threatened a danger to the country 
and the Government almost amounting to a national 
calamity. 



ANDRE W J A CKSON. T Q g 

The subject of renewal of the charter was agitated 
at every succeeding session of Congress until 1836. 

In December, 1831, the National Republicans 
nominated candidates. Henry Clay was the candi- 
date for the office of President, and John Sergeant 
for that of Vice-President. The address to the 
people presented the party issues which were to be 
settled at the ensuing election, the chief subjects 
being the tariff, internal improvement, removal of 
the Cherokee Indians, and the renewal of the United 
States Bank charter. Thus the bank question was 
fully presented as an issue in the election by that 
part of its friends who classed politically against 
Jackson. But it had also Democratic friends without 
whose aid the re-charter could not be got through 
Congress, and they labored assiduously for it. 

Bitter was the contest between the President on 
the one side and the bank and its supporters in the 
Senate on the other side. The conduct of the bank 
produced distress throughout the country, and was 
so intended to coerce the President. Distress peti- 
tions flooded Congress, and the Senate even passed 
resolutions of censure of the President. The latter, 
however, held firm in his position. Webster was a 
Federal leader on both occasions — against the char- 
ter in 1816; for the re-charter in 1832. The bill 
passed the Senate after a long contest; and passed 
the House with little or no contest at all. 

It was sent to the President, and vetoed by him 
July 10, 1832; the veto being based mainly on the 
unconstitutionality of the measure. The veto was 
sustained. The downfall of the bank speedily fol- 
lowed; it soon afterwards became a total financial 



HO LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

wreck, and its assets and property were seized on 
executions. With its financial failure it vanished 
from public view, and public interest in it, and con- 
cern with it, died out. 

The American system, and especially its promi- 
nent feature of a high protective tariff, was put in 
issue, in the Presidential canvass of 1832; and the 
friends of that system labored diligently in Congress 
in presenting its best points to the greatest advan- 
tage; and staking its fate upon the issue of the 
election. It was lost; not only by the result of the 
main contest, but by that of the congressional elec- 
tion which took place simultaneously with it. All 
the States dissatisfied with that system were satisfied 
with the view of its speedy and regular extinction, 
under the legislation of the approaching session of 
Congress, excepting only South Carolina. She held 
aloof from the Presidential contest, and cast her elec- 
toral vote for persons who were not candidates — 
doing nothing to aid Jackson's election, with whom 
her interests were apparently identified. On No- 
vember 24, 1832, two weeks after the election which 
decided the fate of the tariff, that State issued an 
"Ordinance to nullify certain acts of the Congress 
of the United States, purporting to be laws laying 
duties and imposts on the importation of foreign 
commodities." It declared that Congress had ex- 
ceeded its constitutional powers in imposing high 
and excessive duties on the theory of "protection," 
had unjustly discriminated in favor of one class or 
employment, at the expense and to the injury and 
oppression of other classes and individuals; that said 
laws were not binding on the State and its citizens; 



ANDRE W J A CKSON. 



ill 



and declared its right and purpose to enact laws to 
prevent the enforcement and arrest the operation of 




DANIEL WEBSTEB 



said acts within the limits of that State after the 
first day of February following. This ordinance 
nlaced the State in the attitude of forcible resistance 



H2 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

to the laws of the United States. The ordinance 
of nullification was certified by the Governor of 
South Carolina to the President of the United States, 
and reached him in December. The President im- 
mediately issued a proclamation, exhorting the 
people of South Carolina to obey the laws of Con- 
gress; pointing out and explaining the illegality of 
the procedure; stating clearly and distinctly his firm 
determination to enforce the laws as became him as 
Executive, even by resort to force if necessary. He 
declared that " The Constitution of the United States 
forms a government, not a league; and whether it 
be formed by a compact between the States, or in 
any other manner, its character is the same. * * 
* * To say that any State may at pleasure secede 
from the Union, is to say that the United States are 
not a nation; because it would be a solecism to con- 
tend that any part of a nation might dissolve its 
connection with the other parts, to their injury or 
ruin, without committing any offence." 

Bills for the reduction of the tariff were intro- 
duced, while at the same time the President, though 
not relaxing his efforts towards a peaceful settlement 
of the difficulty, made steady preparations for en- 
forcing the law. The result of the bills offered in 
the two Houses of Congress was the passage of 
Clay's "compromise" bill on February 12, 1833, 
which radically changed the whole tariff system. 

The President recommended the revival of some 
Acts, heretofore in force, to enable him to execute 
the laws in South Carolina; and the Senate reported 
such a bill. It was assailed as violent and unconsti- 
tutional, tending to civil war, and denounced as 






ANDRE W JACKSON. 1 1 3 

u the bloody bill " — the "force bill," etc. Webster 
justified the bill, both for the equity of its provi- 
sions, and the necessity for enacting them. He said 
that an unlawful combination threatened the integ- 
rity of the Union ; that the crisis is called for a mild, 
temperate, forbearing, but inflexibly firm execution 
of the laws; and finally, that public opinion sets 
with an irresistible force in favor of the Union, in 
favor of the measures recommended by the President, 
and against the new doctrines which threatened the 
dissolution of the Union. He supported the cause 
of the Constitution and of the country, in the person 
of a President to whom he was politically opposed, 
whose gratitude and admiration he earned for his 
patriotic endeavors. The country, without distinc- 
tion of party, felt the same; and the universality 
of the feeling was one of the grateful instances 
of popular applause and justice when great talents 
are seen exertino; themselves for the o-ood of the 
country. He was the colossal figure on the political 
stage during that eventful time; and his labors, 
splendid in their day, survive for the benefit of dis- 
tant posterity. 

In 1834 a measure was introduced for equalizing 
the value of gold and silver, and legalizing the ten- 
der of foreign coin, of both metals. The good effects 
of the bill were immediately seen. Gold began to 
flow into the country through all the channels of 
commerce, foreign and domestic; the mint was busy; 
and specie payment, which had been suspended in 
the country for thirty years, was resumed, and gold 
and silver became the currency of the land; inspiring 
confidence in all the pursuits of industry. 
8 



114 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

Agitation of the slavery question in the United 
States really began about this time. Congress in 
1836 was flooded with petitions urging Federal in- 
terference to abolish slavery in the States; beginning 
with the petition of the Society of Friends of Phila- 
delphia, urging the abolition of slavery in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. 

Arkansas was admitted as a State into the Union, 
June 15, 1836, and Michigan followed on January 
26, 1837. 

The Presidential election of 1836 resulted in the 
choice of the Democratic candidate. Martin Van 
Buren, of New York, was elected by 170 electoral 
votes; his opponent, William Henry Harrison, re- 
ceiving yx> electoral votes. Scattering votes were 
given for Webster and others. President Jackson 
delivered his last annual message, under circum- 
stances exceedingly gratifying to him. The power- 
ful opposition in Congress had been broken down, 
and he had the satisfaction of seeing full majorities 
of ardent and tried friends in each House. The 
country was in peace and friendship with all the 
world; all exciting questions quieted at home; in- 
dustry in all its branches prosperous, and the revenue 
abundant. And as a happy sequence of this state of 
affairs, the Senate on March 16, 1837, expunged 
from their Journal the resolution, adopted three 
years previously, censuring the President for order- 
ing the removal of the deposits of public money in 
the United States Bank. He retired from the 
Presidency with high honors, and died eight years 
afterwards at his home, the celebrated " Hermitage," 
in Tennessee, in full possession of all his faculties. 



MARTIN VAN BUR EN. 115 

and strong to the last in the ruling passion of his 
soul to sacrifice everything but honor to the glory of 
his native land. He is buried in Nashville, Tenn. 



MARTIN VAN BUREN— 1837-1841. 

Martin Van Buren, our eighth President, was 
born at Kinderhook, in New York, December 5, 
1782. All former Presidents had been direct de- 
scendants from Britons, and they had been born 
before the Revolution, and participated in its events. 
Van Buren' s ancestors were Hollanders. 

He was educated at the academy in his native 
village, studied law and was admitted to the Bar in 
1803. He was distinguished neither for great learn- 
ing nor eloquence; but was patient in study, and 
rapid in acquisition. He was ready in debate, care- 
ful to wariness in every utterance and act; sagacious 
as a politician, and genial in public and private life; 
winning friends on all sides, and retaining them by 
his loyalty. He took an active part in politics and 
was elected a State Senator in 18 12. He advocated 
the second war against England; and voted for the 
protective tariff of 1828. 

In 1815 he became Attorney-General of the State 
of New York, and in 1828 was elected its Governor. 
He afterwards served in the Senate; was appointed 
Minister to England; and in 1832 was elected Vice- 
President with Jackson, whose successor he became. 



u6 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

Though he did not win a brilliant reputation, he 
retired with honor. 

He was inaugurated March 4, 1837, and declared 
his intention "to follow in the footsteps of his 
illustrious predecessor." He therefore caught the 
first full effects of the storm produced by his prede- 
cessor's financial policy, from which even Jackson's 
popularity and admitted honesty would hardly have 
saved him. 

The President was scarcely settled in his new 
office when a financial panic struck the country with 
irresistible force. A general suspension of the banks, 
a depreciated currency, and insolvency of the Federal 
Treasury were at hand. The public money had been 
placed in the custody of the local banks, and the 
notes of all these banks, and of all others in the 
country, were received in payment of public dues. 
On May 10, 1837, the banks throughout the country 
suspended specie payments. The stoppage of the 
deposit banks was the stoppage of the Treasury. 
Non-payment by the Government was an excuse for 
non-payment by others. The suspension was now 
complete; and it was evident, and as good as ad- 
mitted by those who had made it, that it was the 
effect of contrivance on the part of politicians and 
the so-called Bank of the United States (which had 
now become a State corporation chartered by Penn- 
sylvania in January, 1836) for the purpose of restoring 
themselves to power. The promptitude with which 
the Bank of the United States was brought forward 
as a remedy for the distress showed that it had been 
held in reserve for that purpose; and the delight with 
which the Whig party saluted the general calamity, 



MARTIN VAN BUREN. 



I i 



showed that they considered it their own passport 
to power. 

Congress met in September, 1837, at the call of 




MARTIN VAN BUREN. 



the President, whose message was a review of the 
events and causes which had brought about the 
panic; a defence of the policy of the " specie cir- 



Il8 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

cular," and a recommendation to break off all con* 
nection with any bank of issue in any form, looking 
to the establishment of an Independent Treasury, 
and that the Government provide for the deficit in 
the Treasury by the issue of Treasury notes and by 
withholding the deposit due to the States under the 
Act then in force. The message and its recommen- 
dations were violently assailed both in the Senate and 
House; but the measures proposed by the Executive 
were in substance enacted; and their passage marks 
an era in our financial history — making a total and 
complete separation of Bank and State, and firmly 
establishing the principle that the Government reve- 
nues should be receivable in coin only. 

The next Presidential election was now at hand. 
The same candidates who fought the battle of 1836 
were again in the field. Van Buren was the Demo- 
cratic candidate. His administration had been satis- 
factory to his party, who commended his nomination 
for a second term to the different States in appointing 
their delegates; so that the proceedings of the con- 
vention which nominated him were entirely harmo- 
nious and formal in their nature. Richard M. 
Johnson, the actual Vice-President, was also nomi- 
nated for Vice-President. 

On the Whig ticket, William Henry Harrison of 
Ohio was the candidate for President, and John 
Tyler of Virginia for Vice-President. The leading 
statesmen of the Whig party were again put aside, 
to make way for a military man, prompted by the 
example in the nomination of General Jackson, the 
men who managed Presidential elections believing 
that military renown was a passport to popularity 



MARTIN VAN BUREN. 



Il 9 



and rendered a candidate surer of election. Avail- 
ability was the only ability asked for. Clay, the most 
prominent Whig in the country, and the acknowl- 
edged head of the party, was not deemed available; 
and although Clay was a candidate before the con- 
vention, the proceedings were so regulated that his 




THE CAPITOL AT ALBANY, NRW YORK. 

nomination was referred to a committee, ingeniously 
devised and directed for the purpose of preventing 
his nomination and securing that of General Har- 
rison; and of producing the intended result without 
showing the design, and without leaving a trace be- 
hind to show what was done. The result of this 
secret committee balloting- was: For General Scott 



120 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

16 votes; for Mr. Clay, 90 votes; for General Harri- 
son, 148 votes. As the law of the convention im- 
pliedly required the absorption of all minorities, the 
106 votes were swallowed up by the 148 votes and 
made to count for General Harrison, presenting him 
as the unanimous candidate of the convention, and 
the defeated candidates and all their friends were 
bound to loyally join in his support. And in this 
way the election of 1840 was effected. 

The contest before the people was a long and 
bitter one — the severest ever known in the country 
up to that time. The whole Whig party and the 
large league of suspended banks, headed by the Bank 
of the United States, making its last struggle for a 
new national charter in the effort to elect a President 
friendly to it, were arrayed against the Democrats, 
whose hard-money policy and independent treasury 
schemes, met with little favor in the then depressed 
condition of the country. Meetings were held in 
every State, county, and town; the people thor- 
oughly aroused, and every argument made in favor 
of the respective candidates and parties, which could 
possibly have any effect upon the voters. The can- 
vass was a thorough one, and the election was carried 
for the Whig candidates, who received 234 electoral 
votes coming from 19 States. The remaining 60 
electoral votes of the other 9 States, were given to 
the Democratic candidate; though the popular vote 
was not so unevenly divided ; the actual figures being 
1,275,611 for the Whig ticket, against 1,135,761 for 
the Democratic ticket. It was a complete rout of 
the Democratic party, but without the moral effect 
of victory. 



MARTIN VAN BUREN. 



121 



In this campaign the Abolitionist, or Liberal party, 
nominated James G. Birney of New York and 
Francis Lemoyne of Pennsylvania. Their platform 
favored the abolition of slavery in the District of 
Columbia and Territories, the inter-State slave trade, 




CITY HALI,, NEW YORK CITY. 



and a general opposition to slavery to the full extent 
of constitutional power. They polled 7,609 votes. 

As a business man, Van Buren had no superior. 
He transacted business without any apparent effort 
or labor, and it never accumulated on his hands. In 



122 



LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 



the 1844 Convention he received a majority of the 
votes, but owing to his objection to the annexation 




GENERAL WIN FIELD SCOTT. 



of Texas and the adoption of the two-thirds rule, 
failed of a nomination. In 1848, at the solicitation 
of his friends, he reluctantly consented to run again 



WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON. 123 

when there was no hope of an election. This error 
of his friends defeated all future chances of success. 
In person he was of medium size, but became large 
in his old age. H e was always neat in dress, and 
was in comfortable circumstances. On retiring from 
the Presidency he returned to his native town, "where 
he died July 24, 1862. 



WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON— 1841 {31 days). 

William Henry Harrison, the ninth President, 
was born in Virginia, February 9, 1773. He was 
the youngest son of Governor Benjamin Harrison, a 
signer of the Declaration of Independence, and had 
the advantages of education, culture, patriotic 
souvenirs and early acquaintance with the scenes 
of frontier life. At nineteen he joined the army 
and served in the campaigns against the Western 
Indians. His command of Fort Washington, where 
Cincinnati now stands, secured for him "in 1797 the 
secretaryship of the territory north-west of the Ohio, 
of which he was three years later chosen Delegate 
to Congress. In 1801 on the division of the Terri- 
tory, he was appointed Governor of that portion 
which now embraces Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, 
and^ Wisconsin. That vast tract was held by 
Indians, whose ferocities were restrained by treaties 
till they were inflamed by Tecumseh, when Harri- 
son advanced victoriously against them in 181 1 at 
Tippecanoe. 

The 181 2 War with England now came on and 



124 



LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 



Tecumseh entered the British service and the In- 
dians became more hostile than ever. Perry's vic- 




WILUAM HENRY HARRISON. 



tory on Lake Erie enabled Harrison to drive the 
British and their savage allies across the line into 
Canada, where they were totally routed, covering 



JOHX TYLER. 



125 



the victorious general with a glory which finally 
carried him to the Presidency. After years of civil 
service he was elected, in 1824, to the United States 
Senate. Retiring to his farm on the Ohio for twelve 
years, his services having made him the most popu- 
lar citizen of the Great West, he was nominated to 
the Presidency, and a wave of popular enthusiasm 
secured his triumph. The friends of Van Buren 
attempted to cast upon his rival the most un-Ameri- 
can slurs. They accused him of living in a log- 
cabin; with nothing to drink but hard cider. Bor- 
rowing these emblems from their enemies, they be- 
came the watchword of the Whigs, and everywhere 
log-cabins sprang up as if by magic, and hard cider 
became the popular drink. Harrison was inaugu- 
rated March 4, 1841, being the first President who 
was not a Democrat, since Jackson's installation in 
1829. T° h^ Cabinet he called some of the most 
famous men of the party, and it was greeted with 
inspiring auguries. He was the oldest of our Presi- 
dents, and the infirmities of age led to physical pros- 
tration under the pressure of the new situation, and 
in one short month he was borne to his grave, 
leaving for himself a cherished memory and an 
honorable fame. He died April 4, 1841; and was 
buried at North Bend, Ohio. 



JOHN TYLER— 1841-1845. 

John Tyler, the tenth President, reached the 
Presidency through the death of General Harrison 
who had been in office but one month. This was the 



126 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

first time in the history of our Government the Vice- 
President had become President under the Constitu- 
tion. He was inaugurated April 6, 1841; and his 
administration was crowded with extraordinary 
events. 

President Tyler was born in Virginia, March 29, 
1790. His father was Governor of Virginia from 
1808 till 181 1. At the age of twelve he was fully 
prepared to enter William and Mary College, from 
whence he graduated in 1806. He served in the Legis- 
lature for several years till 18 16, when, at the age of 
26, he was elected to Congress. At the close of his 
second term he was elected Governor of his State, 
whence he was advanced to the Senate. He voted 
for the censure on Jackson's conduct in Florida; 
opposed the U. S. Bank, the protective policy, and 
internal improvements by the National Government; 
opposed the administration of Adams and the Tariff 
Bill of 1828; sympathized with the nullification 
measures of South Carolina and was the only 
Senator who voted against the Force Bill for the 
repression of that incipient secession; voted for 
Clay's Compromise Bill, and his resolutions censur- 
ing Jackson for the removal of the deposits, although 
he believed the Bank unconstitutional ; was regarded 
as a martyr to the Whig cause, and consequently 
supported by many of them in the campaign of 1836 
for the Vice-Presidency, but was then defeated. He 
retained Harrison's Cabinet in office; and was ex- 
pected to approve whatever a Whig Congress should 
do. His first message confirmed this expectation. 
Bills were reported for repealing the Independent 
Treasury, for chartering a bank, for distributing the 



JOHN TYLER. 



12' 



proceeds of land-sales, and an insolvent law, under 
the name of a Bankrupt Act, and all were passed 







JOHN TYLER. 



by Congress. The Bank Act was alone vetoed by 
Tyler, who objected to some of its provisions. A 



I 2 8 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

second bill, with these modified, was passed ; but this 
was also vetoed. This created a breach between the 
President and the Whigs who had elected him. A 
third bill was reported, but never acted upon. 

A Tariff Bill, fixing the rate of duties at twenty per 
cent, and regulating the free list, was passed and 
approved. This special session pleased neither party. 
The Whigs carried three measures ; and the Demo- 
crats rejoiced at the defeat of the Bank Bill. Both 
parties had their complaints. At the very next ses- 
sion the Bankrupt Law and the Distribution Act 
were repealed by the Congress that enacted them ; 
and in 1846 the Independent Treasury Act was 
re-enacted, and still remains, subject to such changes 
as were made by Secretary Chase in 1862. 

The chief measure of the Whig party — the one for 
which it had labored for ten years — was the recharter 
of a national bank. Without this all other measures 
would be deemed to be incomplete, and the victorious 
election itself but little better than a defeat. The 
President had been opposed to the Bank ; and to 
overcome any objections he might have, the bill was 
studiously contrived to avoid the President's objec- 
tions, and save his consistency — a point upon which 
he was exceedingly sensitive. The Democratic mem- 
bers resisted strenuously, in order to make the meas- 
ure odious, but successful resistance was impossible. 
It passed both Houses by a close vote ; and contral- 
to all expectation the President vetoed the act, falling 
back upon his early opinions against the constitu- 
tionality of a national bank, so often and so publicly 
expressed. 



JOHN TYLER. I2 o. 

The vote was taken on the bill over again, as 
required by the Constitution, and it received only a 
bare majority, and was returned to the House with a 
message stating the objection to it, where it gave rise 
to some violent speaking, more directed to the per- 
sonal conduct of the President than to the objections 
to the bill stated in his message. The veto was sus- 
tained ; and so ended the second attempt to resuscitate 
the Bank under a new name. 

The conduct of the President in the vetoes of the 
two bank bills produced revolt against him in the 
party ; and the Whigs in Congress held several meet- 
ings to consider what they should do in the new con- 
dition of affairs. The rejection of the bank bill 
gave great vexation to one side, and equal exultation 
to the other. The subject was not permitted to rest, 
however ; a national bank was the life — the vital 
principle of the Whig party, without which it could 
not live as a party ; it was the lever which was to 
give them power and the political and financial con- 
trol of the Union. A second attempt was made, four 
days after the veto, -to accomplish the end by amend- 
ments to a bill relating to the currency, which had 
been introduced early in the session. The bill was 
pushed to a vote with astonishing rapidity, and 
passed by a decided majority. Concurred in by the 
Senate without alteration, it was returned to the 
House, and thence referred to the President for his 
approval or disapproval. It was disapproved * * 
* * The Whig party recoiled from the President, 
and there was diversity and widespread dissension. 
The Whig party remained with Clay ; Webster re- 
9 



136 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

tired, dishing was sent on a foreign mission, and 
the President, seeking to enter the Democratic ranks, 
was refused by them, and left to seek consolation in 
privacy for his political errors and omissions. 

The extra session, called by Harrison, held under 
Tyler, dominated by Clay, commenced May 31st, and 
ended September 13, 1841 — and was replete with dis- 
appointed calculations, and nearly barren of perma- 
nent results. The purposes for which it was called 
into being failed. 

In March, 1842, Henry Clay resigned his place in 
the Senate. He had intended this step at the close 
of the previous presidential campaign, but postponed 
it to take charge of the measures to be brought before 
Congress at the special session — the calling of which 
he foresaw would be necessary. 

Mr. Clay led a great party, and for a long time. 
It was surprising that, without power and patronage, 
he was able so long and so undividedly to keep so 
great a party together, and lead it so unresistingly. 
He had great talents, but not equal to some whom he 
led. He had eloquence superior in popular effect, 
but not equal in high oratory to that of some others. 
But his temperament was fervid, his will was strong, 
and his courage daring ; and these qualities, added to 
his talents, gave him the lead and supremacy in his 
party, where he was always dominant. 

Again was the subject of the tariff considered, but 
this time, as a matter of absolute necessity, to provide 
a revenue. Never before were the coffers and the 
credit of the Treasury at so low an ebb. A deficit of 
fourteen millions in the Treasury — a total inability 



JOHN TYLER. 13 1 

to borrow, either at home or abroad, the amount of 
the loan of twelve millions authorized the year before 
— the Treasury notes below par, and the revenues 
from imports inadequate and decreasing. 

The compromise act of 1833 in reducing the duties 
gradually through nine years, to a fixed low rate ; 
the act of 1837 in distributing the surplus revenue ; 
and the continual and continued distribution of the 
land revenue, had brought about this condition of 
things. The remedy was sought in a bill increasing 
the tariff, and suspending the land revenue distribu- 
tion. Two such bills were passed in a single month, 
and both vetoed by the President. The bill was 
finally passed raising the duties above twenty per 
cent., and approved by the President. 

The next meeting of Congress showed serious losses 
in the Whig following. A Democratic Speaker of 
the House was elected. The President's message 
referred to the treaty lately concluded with Great 
Britain relative to the north-western territory extend- 
ing to the Columbia river, including Oregon and 
S( ttling the boundary lines ; and also to a treaty with 
Texas for her annexation; and recommending the 
establishment of a paper currency to be issued and 
controlled by the government. 

It became evident to leading Democrats that Martin 
Van Buren was the choice of the party. To overcome 
this popular current and turn the tide in favor of 
Calhoun, resort was had to the pending question of 
the annexation of Texas. Van Buren was known to 
be against it, and Calhoun for it. To gain time, the 



132 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

meeting of the convention was postponed, and when 
it met, consisted of 266 delegates, a decided majority 
of whom were for Van Buren and cast their votes 
accordingly on the first ballot. But a chairman had 
been selected who was adverse to his nomination; 
and aided by a rule adopted by the convention, which 
required a concurrence of two-thirds to effect a nom- 
ination, the opponents of Van Buren were able to 
accomplish his defeat. Calhoun had made known 
his determination not to suffer his name to 0-0 before 
that assemblage as a candidate for the Presidency; 
his reasons for so doing resting on the manner in 
which the convention was constituted; he contend- 
ing for district elections, and the delegates to vote 
individually. South Carolina was not represented 
in the convention. After the first ballot Van Buren's 
vote sensibly decreased, until finally, James K. Polk, 
who was a candidate for the Vice-Presidency, was 
brought forward and nominated for the chief office. 
Geo. M. Dallas was chosen for the Vice-Presidency. 
The nomination of these gentlemen was a surprise 
to the country. 

The Whig convention nominated Henry Clay for 
President, and Theodore Frelinghuysen for Vice- 
President. 

The issues in the election which ensued were 
mainly the party ones of Whig and Democratic, 
modified by the tariff and Texas questions. It re- 
sulted in the choice of the Democratic candidates, 
who received 170 electoral votes as against 105 for 
their opponents ; the popular majority for the Demo- 
crats being 238,284, in a total vote of 2,834,108. 
Clay received a larger popular vote than had been 



JOHN TYLER. 133 

given at the previous election for the Whig candi- 
date, showing that he would have been elected had 
he then been the nominee of his party; though the 
popular vote at this election was largely increased 
over that of 1840. It is conceded that the 36 elec- 
toral votes of New York State gave the election to 
Polk. Polk carried New York by about 5,000 votes. 
Harrison and Tyler's majority was 12,000. The 
il Liberty" party ran James G. Birney as a sort of 
test of strength, but it cost Clay the State. The 
great issue was the annexation of Texas. In New 
York the Abolitionists were as much opposed to the 
annexation as were the Whigs, and yet Birney polled 
15,000 votes that would otherwise have gone to 
Clay and given him the electoral vote of the State 
and elected him President. Notwithstanding the 
party triumph, there was scarcely a Democrat there 
who did not feel a passing pang, at least, that 
"Harry of the W T est, n "The Mill Boy of the 
Slashes," and the great Senator worthy of the 
palmy days of ancient Rome, had been defeated. It 
was a cruel blow of Fate, in her severest mood. 

Tyler's last message contained an elaborate para- 
graph on the subject of Texas and Mexico; the idea 
being the annexation of the former to the Union, 
and the assumption of her causes of grievance 
against the latter; and a treaty was pending to 
accomplish these objects. Before the end of May, a 
great meeting took place in South Carolina to com- 
bine the slave States in a convention to unite the 
Southern States to Texas, if Texas should not be 
received into the Union; and to invite the President 
to convene Congress to arrange the terms of the dis- 



134 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

solution of the Union if the rejection of the annexa- 
tion should be persevered in. Responsive resolu- 
tions were adopted in several States. The opposi- 
tion manifested brought the movement to a stand, 
and suppressed the disunion scheme for the time 
being. 

Annexation was supported by all the power of the 
administration, but failed; it was rejected in the 
Senate by a two-thirds vote against it. Following 
this, a joint resolution was brought into the House 
for the admission of Texas as a State of the Union, 
by legislative action ; it passed the House by a fair 
majority, but met with opposition in the Senate un- 
less coupled with a proviso for negotiation and treaty, 
as a condition precedent, and in this shape it was 
agreed to, and became a law March 3, 1845. Texas 
was then at war with Mexico, though an armistice 
had been agreed upon, looking to a treaty of peace. 

It has been charged that Tyler saw that Clay would 
be nominated as his successor, and felt stung by his 
overbearing and dictatorial course, and he therefore 
sought, by his peculiar course, to build up a separate 
party for himself, hoping to be made his own suc- 
cessor. If he entertained such views, he was sorely 
disappointed in the result. His course was such as 
to satisfy neither party. Instead of rising politically, 
Tyler sank down, and had few supporters in Con- 
gress and fewer elsewhere, except those in office. 

Personally, Tyler possessed many good qualities. 
He was benevolent, kind, and warm-hearted, and 
without greediness for money, or a disposition to 
trench upon the rights of others. He possessed some 
qualities that unfitted him for the Presidency. He 



JAMES K. POLK. ^5 

was careless, indolent, easily persuaded to anything, 
where old Virginia doctrines did not point out the 
contrary way. He was not prompt nor firm like 
those governed by inflexible principles. If Virginia 
had fully settled the question, he was ready to con- 
form to it, but even then he was not always firm and 
immovable, but often drifted. On other questions 
he was apt to follow the course of an easy mind. 
The natural promptings of his mind were such as 
mankind could approve. The errors came in when 
he attempted to control his natural impulses and 
yield to those of selfish calculation. The attempt 
to limit him in the enjoyment of privileges which 
had been permitted all other Presidents has left more 
salutary enactments on the statute-book than were 
made in the same length of time since the repeal of 
the Alien and Sedition laws. He retired from office 
execrated by all parties. He went with the seces- 
sionists, and was a secession member of Congress 
when he died, showing that he had outlived all the 
Whigism that he once had. He died at Richmond, 
Virginia, January 17, 1862. 



JAMES K. POLK— 1845-1849. 

James K. Polk, the eleventh President, was born 
in North Carolina on November 2, 1795. His im- 
mediate ancestors emigrated from Ireland. His 
father removed in 1806 to Tennessee. Graduating 
from the University of North Carolina in 1818, he 
studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1820, 



36 



LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 



He was elected to the State Legislature in 1823, and 
to Congress in 1825, where he continued fourteen 




JAMES K. POLK. 



years; and from 1835 to 1839 was Speaker of the 
House, He was elected Governor of Tennessee in 



JAMES K. POLK. 13; 

1839, and in 1844 ne was elected President by a small 
majority over Henry Clay. He had always been an 
ardent Democrat. He became distinguished as a 
well-informed statesman in his opposition to John 
Quincy Adams, and was leader in the House during 
Jackson's Administration. His incorruptibility was 
proverbial, and his enemies never questioned his 
truthfulness or integrity. He sought to be right, and 
when he believed he was so, nothing could turn him. 

He was inaugurated March 4, 1845, an d called 
able men to his Cabinet. James Buchanan of Penn- 
sylvania was appointed Secretary of State; Robert 
J. Walker of Mississippi was made Secretary of the 
Treasury; William L. Marcy of New York assumed 
the War portfolio; and George Bancroft, the histo- 
rian, was selected for Secretary of the Navy. 

The House was largely Democratic. At this ses- 
sion the "American'' party — a new political organ- 
ization — first made its appearance in the national 
councils, having elected six members of the House, 
four from New York and two from Pennsylvania. 
The President's first message had for its chief topic 
the admission of Texas, then accomplished, and the 
consequent dissatisfaction of Mexico; and a recom- 
mendation for a revision of the tariff, with a view 
to revenue as the object, with protection to home 
industry as the incident. 

Florida and Iowa were admitted into the Union; 
the former permitting slavery within its borders, the 
latter denying it. Long before this, the free and the 
slave States were equal in number, and the practice 
had grown up — from a feeling of jealously and policy 
to keep them evenly balanced — of admitting one 



138 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

State of each character at the same time. Numeri- 
cally the free and the slave States were thus kept 
even: in political power a vast inequality was going 
on — the increase of population being so much greater 
in the northern than in the southern region. 

Attempts were made in 1842, and continued to 
1846, to settle the north-western boundary line with 
Great Britain. It had been assumed that we had 
a dividing line, made by previous treaty, along the 
parallel of 54 degrees 40 minutes from the sea to the 
Rocky Mountains. The subject so much absorbed 
public attention, that the Democratic Convention of 
1844 m its platform declared for that boundary line, 
or war as the consequence. It became known as 
the 54-40 plank, and was a canon of political faith. 
The President had declared in his inaugural ad- 
dress in favor of the 54-40 line; and he was in a 
dilemma. To maintain that position meant war with 
Great Britain; to recede from it seemed impossible. 
Congress had come together under the loud cry 
of war, in which Lewis Cass was the leader, but 
followed by the body of the Democracy, and backed 
and cheered by the whole Democratic newspaper 
press. Under the authority and order of Congress 
notice had been served on Great Britain, which was 
to abrogate the joint occupation of the country by 
the citizens of the two powers. It was finally re- 
solved by the British Government to propose the 
line of 49 degrees, continuing to the ocean, as 
originally offered by Calhoun; and though the 
President was favorable to its acceptance, he could 
not, consistently with his previous acts, accept and 
make a treaty on that basis. Lord Ashburton, who 



JAMES K. POLK. 1 ^g 

had charge of the English interests, was a very keen 
and wily diplomatist. He met the Democratic 
clamor for "54-40 or fight" by saying to Calhoun 
and the Senate slave-holding oligarchy that in the 
event of a war we would undoubtedly take Canada, 
which would confer on the North such a political 
preponderance that the South would be overruled 
thereafter in Congress, and crushed in any disturb- 
ance she might initiate — the Canadian feeling being 
as pronounced against slavery as was that in the 
North and East. This settled the boundary question 
in a jiffy. 

The President's Message to the next Congress re- 
lated to the war with Mexico, which had been 
declared by almost a unanimous vote in Congress. 
Calhoun spoke against the declaration in the Senate, 
but did not vote upon it. He was sincerely opposed 
to the war, although his conduct had produced it. 
Had he remained in the Cabinet, to do which 
he had not concealed his wish, he would, no 
doubt, have labored earnestly to have prevented it. 
Many administration members of Congress were 
averse to the war. There was an impression that it 
could not last above three months. 

While this matter was pending in Congress, Mr. 
Wilmot of Pennsylvania introduced and moved a 
proviso, u that no part of the territory to be acquired 
shotdd be open to the introduction of slavery." It 
was entirely unnecessary, as the only territory to be 
acquired was that of New Mexico and California, 
where slavery was already prohibited by the Mexi- 
can laws and constitution. The proviso only served 
to bring a slavery agitation on again, 



I4 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

The Congress, in December, 1837, was found, so 
far as respected the House, to be politically adverse 
to the administration. The Whigs were in the ma- 
jority and elected the Speaker. The President's 
Message contained a full report of the progress of 
the war with Mexico; the success of the American 
arms in that conflict; the victory of Cerro Gordo, 
and the capture of the City of Mexico; and that 
negotiations were then pending for a treaty of peace. 
The message concluded with a reference to the excel- 
lent results from the independent Treasury system. 

The war with Mexico was ended by the signing 
of a treaty of peace, in February, 1848, by the terms 
of which New Mexico and Upper California were 
ceded to the United States, and the lower Rio 
Grande, from its mouth to El Paso, taken for the 
boundary of Texas. For the territory thus acquired, 
the United States agreed to pay to Mexico the sum 
of $15,000,000, in five annual installments. The 
victories achieved by the American commanders — 
Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott — during that 
war, won for them national reputation, by means of 
which they were brought prominently forward for 
the Presidential succession. 

The question of the power of Congress to legislate 
on the subject of slavery in the Territories was again 
raised, on the bill for the establishment of the Oregon 
territorial government. 

Calhoun, in the Senate, declared that the exclusion 
of slavery from any Territory was a subversion of 
the Union; openly proclaimed the strife between 
the North and South to be ended, and the separation 
of the States accomplished, " The South," he said, 



JAMES K. POLK. 



141 



"has now a most solemn obligation to perform — to 
herself— to the Constitution— to the Union. She is 




LEWIS CASS. 



bound to come to a decision not to permit this to go 
on any further, but to show that, dearly as she prizes 



142 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

the Union, there are questions which she regards as 
of greater importance than the Union. This is not 
a question of territorial government, but a question 
involving the continuance of the Union." The 
President, in approving the Oregon Bill, took occa- 
sion to send in a special Message, pointing out the 
danger to the Union from the progress of the slavery 
agitation, and urged an adherence to the principles 
of the ordinance of 1787 — the terms of the Missouri 
Compromise of 1820 — as also that involved and de- 
clared in the Texas case in 1845, as the means of 
averting that danger. 

The Presidential election of 1848 was coming on. 
The Democratic Convention met in May. The main 
question of the platform was the doctrine advanced 
by the Southern members of non-interference with 
slavery in the States or in the Territories. The 
candidates of the party were: Lewis Cass of Mich- 
igan for President, and William O. Butler of Ken- 
tucky for Vice-President. 

The Whig Convention, taking advantage of the 
popularity of Zachary Taylor for his military 
achievements in the Mexican War, then just ended, 
and his consequent availability as a candidate, nom- 
inated him for the Presidency, over Clay, Webster, 
and General Scott, who were his competitors before 
the convention. Millard Fillmore was selected as the 
Vice-Presidential candidate. 

A third convention was held, consisting of the 
disaffected Democrats from New York. They met 
and nominated Martin Van Buren for President, and 
Charles Francis Adams for Vice-President. The 
principles of its platform were: That Congress should 



JAMES K. POLK. 143 

abolish slavery wherever it constitutionally had the 
power to do so — [which was intended to apply to the 
District of Columbia] — that it should not interfere 
with it in the slave States — and that it should pro- 
hibit it in the Territories. This party became known 
as " Free-soilers," from their doctrines thus enumer- 
ated, and their party cry of "free soil, free speech, 
free labor, free men." The result of the election, 
as had been foreseen, was to lose New York State 
to the regular candidate, and give it to the Whigs, 
who were triumphant in the reception of 163 elec- 
toral votes for their candidates, against 127 for the 
Democrats; and none for the Free-soilers. 

In his last Message Polk urged upon Congress the 
necessity for some measure to quiet the slavery agi- 
tation, and he recommended the extension of the 
Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific Ocean, pass- 
ing through the new Territories of California and 
New Mexico, as a fair adjustment, to meet as far as 
possible the views of all parties. The President re- 
ferred also to the state of the finances; the excellent 
condition of the public Treasury; Government loans 
commanding a high premium; gold and silver the 
established currency; and the business interests of 
the country in a prosperous condition. And this 
was the state of affairs only one year after emergency 
from a foreign war. 

Although Polk could not rank among the great 
statesmen who had preceded him in that high office, 
yet his administration was made memorable by im- 
portant events which reflected lustre upon it. He 
was wise in the choice of his counsellors, and fortu- 
nate in theii acts. The north-western boundary 



I4 4 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

question was settled. Texas had beeu admitted, and 
the war with Mexico, which followed, was conducted 
with so much energy and success in the field, and 
the great ability of Marcy in the Cabinet, that the 
acquisition of a vast territory from Mexico, the im- 
mediate discovery of gold in California, and the 
impulse thus given to the advance in population to 
the Pacific, all combined to render the administra- 
tion of Polk a most memorable one in our history. 
Taken altogether, it realized what the old Federal- 
ists used to call "Jefferson's day-dreams." In the 
light of later events too much praise cannot be 
awarded to him for the distinct announcement, in 
the beginning of his term, that under no circum- 
stances would he allow himself to be considered a 
candidate a second time. He retired from office 
March 4, 1849, and died at Nashville, June 15, 1849. 



ZACHARY TAYLOR—1849-1850. 

General Zachary Taylor, our twelfth Presi- 
dent, was born in Virginia, in 1784. His father was 
a colonel in the Continental Army and fought by 
the side of Washington. He entered the army in 
1808, and rose by regular gradations to be a major- 
general. He was enQfa^ed in fights with the Indians 
and brought the Seminole War to a close. His suc- 
cesses in the Mexican War gave him so much public 
favor that the Whigs nominated him for President 
in 1848, and elected him over Lewis Cass. Millard 
Fillmore, of New York, was elected with him as 
Vice-President. 



ZACHARY TAYLOR. 



145 



He was inaugurated March 4, 1849- He * ose £ 
verv able Cabinet, selecting all Whigs; although 





ZACHARY TAYLOR. 



from the -ate of the capital he announced his in- 
tention of conducting his administration on the 



10 



i.|6 



LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 



principles of the early Presidents — that he would be 
President of the nation and not of a party. He 
knew his want of qualifications for civil office; and 
frequently expressed his regret that he ever con- 
sented to run for the Presidency, saying that "Mr. 
Clay ought to have been in his place." He was 
65 years old when inaugurated and he was a confid- 
ing man and freely trusted his friends. He was but 
sixteen months in office, dying in Washington, July 

9, 1850. He was buried at Louisville, Kentucky. 
His death was a public calamity. No man could 

have been more devoted to the Union nor more 
opposed to the slavery agitation; and his position as 
a Southern man and a slaveholder — his military 
reputation, and his election by a majority of the 
people as well as of the States, would have given 
him a power in the settlement of the pending ques- 
tions of the day which no President without these 
qualifications could have possessed. 

In accordance with the Constitution, the office of 
President thus devolved upon the Vice-President, 
Millard Fillmore, who was duly inaugurated July 

10, 1850. A new Cabinet, with Daniel Webster as 
Secretary of State, was appointed and confirmed by 
the Senate. 

Congress met in December, 1849. ^ ne Senate con- 
sisted of sixty members, among whom were Web- 
ster, Calhoun, and Clay, who had returned to public 
life. The House had 230 members; and although 
the Whigs had a small majority, the House was so 
divided on the slavery question in its various phases, 
that the election for Speaker resulted in the choice 
of the Democratic candidate, Cobb, of Georgia, by 



148 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

a majority of three votes. President "Taylor's Mes- 
sage plainly showed that he comprehended the dan- 
gers to the Union from a continuance of sectional 
feeling on the slavery question, and he averred his 
determination to stand by the Union to the full 
extent of his obligations and powers. Congress had 
spent six months in endeavoring to frame a satis- 
factory bill providing territorial governments for 
California and New Mexico, and had adjourned 
without accomplishing it, in consequence of inability 
to agree upon whether the Missouri Compromise 
line should be carried to the ocean, or the Territories 
be permitted to remain as they were — slavery pro- 
hibited under the laws of Mexico. Calhoun brought 
forward, in the debate, a new doctrine — extending 
the Constitution to the Territory, and arguing that 
as that instrument recognized the existence of 
slavery, the settlers in such Territory should be per- 
mitted to hold their slave property taken there, and 
be protected. Webster's answer to this was that 
the Constitution was made for States, not Territories; 
that it cannot operate anywhere, not even in the 
States for which it was made, without acts of Con- 
gress to enforce it. The proposed extension of the 
Constitution to Territories, with a view to the trans- 
portation of slavery along with it, was futile and 
nugatory without the Act of Congress to vitalize 
slavery under it. 

The early part of the year had witnessed ominous 
movements — nightly meeting of members from the 
slave States, led by Calhoun, to consider the state 
of things between the North and the South. They 
prepared an address to the people. It was in this 



ZACHARY TAYLOR. 



149 



condition of things, that President Taylor expressed 
his opinion, in his Message, of the remedies re- 
quired. California, New Mexico and Utah, had 
been left without governments. For California, he 
recommended that having a sufficient population 
and having framed a Constitution, she be admitted 
as a State into the Union; and for New Mexico and 
Utah, without mixing the slavery question with 
their territorial governments, they be left to ripen 
into States, and settle the slavery question for them- 
selves in their State Constitutions. 

With a view to meet the wishes of all parties, 
Clay introduced compromise resolutions providing 
for the admission of California — the territorial gov- 
eminent for Utah and New Mexico — the settlement 
of the Texas boundary — slavery in the District of 
Columbia — and for a fugitive slave law. It was 
earnestly opposed by many, as being a concession to 
the spirit of disunion — a capitulation under threat 
of secession; and as likely to become the source of 
more contentions than it proposed to quiet. 

Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, afterwards Presi- 
dent of the Southern Confederacy, objected that the 
measure gave nothing to the South in the settlement 
of the question; and he required the extension of the 
Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific Ocean as the 
least that he would be willing to take, with the 
specific recognition of the right to hold slaves in the 
Territories below that line; and that, before such 
Territories are admitted into the Union as States, 
slaves may be taken there from any of the United 
States at the option of their owner. 

Clay in reply said; " Coming from a slave State, 



150 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

as I do, I owe it to myself, I owe it to truth, I owe 
it to the subject, to say that no earthly power could 
induce me to vote for a specific measure for the in- 
troduction of slavery where it had not before existed, 
either south or north of that line. * * * If the 
citizens of those Territories choose to establish 
slavery, I am for admitting them with such pro- 
visions in their Constitutions; but then it will be 
their own work, and not ours, and their posterity 
will have to reproach them, and not us, for forming 
Constitutions allowing the institution of slavery to 
exist among them." 

Following this, Calhoun said, "All the elements in 
favor of agitation are stronger now than they were 
in 1835, when it first commenced, while all the ele- 
ments of influence on the part of the South are 
weaker. Unless something decisive is done, what 
is to stop this agitation, before the great and final 
object at which it aims — the abolition of slavery in 
the States — is consummated ? If something decisive 
is not now done to arrest it, the South will be 
forced to choose between abolition and secession." 

Calhoun died in the spring of 1850, before the 
separate bill for the admission of California was taken 
up. His death, at 68, took place at Washington. 
He was the first great advocate of the doctrine of 
secession. He was the author of the nullification 
doctrine, and an advocate of the extreme doctrine of 
State Rights. He was an eloquent speaker — a man 
of strong intellect. His speeches were plain, strong, 
concise, sometimes impassioned, and always severe. 
Daniel Webster said of him, that "he had the basis, 
the indispensable basis of all high characters, and 



MILLARD FILLMORE. 151 

that was, unspotted integrity, unimpeached honor 
and character! " 

The bill to admit California was called up in the 
Senate and sought to be amended by extending the 
Missouri Compromise line through it, to the Pacific 
Ocean, so as to authorize slavery in the State below 
that line. The amendment was pressed by Southern 
friends of the late Mr. Calhoun, and made a test 
question. It was lost, and the bill passed by a two- 
third vote. The bill went to the House of Rep- 
resentatives, was readily passed, and promptly 
approved by the President. Thus was virtually ac- 
complished the abrogation of the Missouri Compro- 
mise line ; and the extension or non-extension of 
slavery was then made to form a foundation for 
future political parties. 



MILLARD FILLMORE— 1850-1853. 

Millard Fillmore, the thirteenth President, was 
born in New York, January 7, 1800. His great 
grandfather was born in New England nearly 200 
years ago. His own father removed to Western 
New York. He received very little education dur- 
ing his boyhood. He learned the occupation of a 
clothier in his youth, but when 19 he resolved to be- 
come a lawyer. His abilities, energy, and industry 
were equal to the undertaking. He was not quick, 
but prepared his cases with care and judgment. In 
1828 he was elected to the Legislature and was twice 
re-elected. In 1832 he went to Congress as an anti- 



!52 



LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 



Jackson man; where he served six years. In 1841 
he was Chairman of the Ways and Means Com- 
mittee, where he gained the reputation that led to 
his nomination as Vice-President. On the death of 
General Taylor he succeeded to the Presidency and 
was inaugurated July 9, 1850. He formed a new 
Cabinet, all Whigs. It included Daniel Webster, 
Secretary of State, who was succeeded in 1852 by 
Edward Everett, of Massachusetts. Thomas Corwin 
of Ohio was his Secretary of the Treasury. For 
Secretary of War he first had General Scott, who 
was shortly followed by Charles M. Conrad, of 
Louisiana; John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky, was 
Attorney-General. 

The year 1850 was prolific with disunion move- 
ments in the Southern States. The Senators who 
had joined with Calhoun in the address to the 
people, in 1849, united with their adherents in estab- 
lishing at Washington a newspaper entitled "The 
Southern Press," devoted to the agitation of the 
slavery question; to presenting the advantages of 
disunion, and the organization of a Confederacy of 
Southern States to be called the "United States 
South." Its constant aim was to influence the 
South against the North, and advocated concert of 
action by the States of the former section. It was 
aided in its efforts by newspapers published in the 
South, more especially in South Carolina and Mis- 
sissippi. The assembling of a Southern "Con- 
gress" was a turning point in the progress of dis- 
union. Georgia refused to join; and her weight as 
a great Southern State was sufficient to cause the 
failure of the scheme. 



MILLARD FILLMORE. 



J 53 



Although Congress had in 1790 and again in 1836 
declared the policy of the Government to be 11011- 




MILLARD FII^MORE- 



interference with the States in respect to the matter 
of slavery within the limits of the respective States, 



154 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

the subject continued to be agitated. The subject 
first made its appearance in national politics in 1840, 
when James G. Birney was nominated by a party 
then formed favoring the abolition of slavery ; it 
had a slight following which was largely increased 
at the election of 1844, when the same party again 
put the same ticket in the field, and received 62,140 
votes. The efforts of the leaders of that faction 
were continued, and persisted in to such an extent, 
that when in 1848 it nominated a ticket, with Gerritt 
Smith for President, against the Democratic can- 
didate, Martin Van Buren, the former received 
296,232 votes. In the contest of 1852 the ticket 
had John P. Hale as its candidate for President, 
and polled 157,926 votes. This following was in- 
creased from time to time, until, uniting with a new 
party then formed, called the Republican party, 
which latter adopted a platform endorsing the views 
and sentiments of the abolitionists, the great and 
decisive battle for the principles involved was 
fought in the ensuing Presidential contest of 1856; 
when the candidate of the Republican party, John 
C. Fremont, supported by the entire abolition party, 
polled 1,341,812 votes. 

On February 25, 1850, there were presented in the 
House of Representatives two petitions from citizens 
of Pennsylvania and Delaware, setting forth that 
slavery violates the Divine law; is inconsistent with 
Republican principles; that its existence has brought 
evil upon the country; and that no Union can exist 
with States which tolerate that institution; and ask- 
ing that some plan be devised for the immediate, 
peaceful dissolution of the Union, The House re- 



156 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 

fused to receive and consider the petitions; as did 
also the Senate when the same petitions were pre- 
sented the same month. 

Slavery was abolished in the District of Columbia 
on September 17, 1850. 

The election of 1852 was the last campaign in 
which the Whig party appeared in national politics. 
It nominated a ticket with Winfield Scott as its can- 
didate for President. His opponent on the Demo- 
cratic ticket was Franklin Pierce. A third ticket 
was placed in the field by the Abolition party, with 
John P. Hale as its candidate. The platform and 
declaration of principles of the Whig party were in 
substance an endorsement of the several measures 
embraced in Clay's compromise resolutions of the 
previous session of Congress, and the policy of a 
revenue for the economical administration of the 
Government, to be derived mainly from duties on 
imports, and by these means to afford protection to 
American industry. The main plank of the plat- 
form of the Abolition party (or Independent Demo- 
crats, as they were called) was for the non-extension 
and gradual extinction of slavery. The Democratic 
party equally adhered to the compromise measure. 
The election resulted in the choice of Franklin 
Pierce, by a popular vote of 1,601,474, and 254 elec- 
toral votes, against a popular aggregate vote of 
1,542,403 (of which the abolitionists polled 
157,926) and 42 electoral votes, for the Whig and 
abolition candidates. Pierce was duly inaugurated 
as President, March 4, 1853. 

A new law for the reclamation of fugitive slaves 
was passed in 1850, containing substantially the same 



FRANKLIN PIERCE. 



157 



provisions as the law of 1793. The law authorizing 
the removal of the slave to the State from which he 
escaped, might be tolerated; but when all citizens 
were "commanded to aid in the execution of the 
law," its enforcement was practically nullified. The 
abolitionist and the humanitarian placed the moral 
law above the legal enactment, and acted accord- 
ingly. It was confidently expected that the President 
would refuse to give the bill his sanction. It met 
with his approval. Fillmore lost whatever chance 
he had of the nomination by his party, by signing 
and seeking to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law. 
He retired from office March 4, 1853, and returned 
to Buffalo. He was nominated in 1856 by the 
American party, but received no electoral votes 
but those of Maryland. He died March 8, 1874, 
and was buried in Buffalo, N. Y. 



FRANKLIN PIERCE— 1853-1857. 

Franklin PiERCE, our thirteenth President, was 
inaugurated March 4, 1853. He was born in New 
Hampshire, November 23, 1804. His father, General 
Benjamin Pierce, served throughout the Revolution- 
arv War in his youth, and half a century later was 
twice elected Governor of New Hampshire. Franklin 
graduated at Bowdoin College in 1824, studied law, 
was soon a successful practitioner, and was elected 
to the State Legislature. He was sent to Congress 
in 1833, and re-elected for a second term, when he 
was advanced to the Senate, being its youngest 



158 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

member. He volunteered as a private in the Mex- 
ican War, where he rose to the rank of brigadier- 
general. He joined the army under Scott, by whom 
he was praised for his gallantry and discretion. At 
the close of the war he returned to Concord, resumed 
the practice of law, declining all political honors 
until the Democratic convention met in 1852. It 
was found that the four great competitors, Cass, 
Buchanan, Marcy, and Douglas, could not gain the 
requisite number of votes; so the Virginia delegation 
brought forward the name of General Pierce, and he 
was nominated by acclamation, carrying in the elec- 
tion all the States except four, against his illustrious 
rival, General Scott. 

To his Cabinet he invited William L. Marcy as 
Secretary of State; James Guthrie of Kentucky was 
given the Treasury; Jefferson Davis of Mississippi 
was appointed War Secretary; and Caleb Cushing 
of Massachusetts was made Attorney-General. 

On February 8, 1853, a bill passed the House of 
Representatives providing a territorial government 
for Nebraska, embracing all of what is now Kansas 
and Nebraska. It was silent on the subject of the 
repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The bill was 
tabled in the Senate, to be revived at the following 
session. It was amended to prohibit "alien suf- 
frage." In the House this amendment was not agreed 
to, and the bill finally passed without it. 

So far as Nebraska was concerned, no excitement 
of any kind marked the initiation of her territorial 
existence. Kansas was less fortunate. Her terri- 
tory became at once the battle-field of a fierce polit- 
ical conflict between the advocates of slaverv, and 



FRANKLIN PIERCE. 



159 



the free-soil men from the North who went there to 
resist the establishment of that institution in the 




FRANKUN PIERCE. 



Territory. Differences arose between the Legisla- 
ture and the Governor, brought about by antago- 



ifto LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

nisms between the Pro-Slavery party and the Free 
State party; and the condition of affairs in Kansas 
assumed so frightful a mien in January, 1856, that 
the President sent a special Message to Congress on 
the subject; followed by a Proclamation, February 
11, 1856, "warning all unlawful combinations (in 
the Territory) to retire peaceably to their respective 
abodes, or he would use the power of the local militia 
and the available forces of the U. S. to disperse them. 

Applications were made for several successive years 
for the admission of Kansas as a State in the Union, 
upon the basis of three separate and distinct consti- 
tutions, all differing as to the main questions at issue 
between the contending factions. The name of 
Kansas was for some years synonymous with all that 
is lawless and anarchical. Elections became mere 
farces, and the officers thus fraudulently placed in 
power, used their authority only for their own or 
their party's interest. The party opposed to slavery 
at length triumphed; a constitution excludingslavery 
was adopted in 1859, and Kansas was admitted into 
the Union January 29, 1861. 

The National party began preparations for a cam- 
paign in 1856. It aimed to introduce opposition to 
aliens and Roman Catholicism as a national question. 
On February 21, 1856, the National Council held a 
session at Philadelphia, and proceeded to formulate 
a declaration of principles. Among other things, it 
declared that ; Americans must rule America, and 
to this end, native-born citizens should be selected 
for all State, Federal, and municipal offices or Gov- 
ernment employment, in preference to all others. 
No person shall be selected for political station who 



FRANKLIN PIERCE. x 6i 

recognizes any allegiance or obligation, of any de- 
scription, to any foreign prince, potentate, or power, 
or who refuses to recognize the Federal and State 
Constitutions as paramount to all other laws, as rules 
of political action. (This was a crack at the Pope.) 
A change in the laws of naturalization, making a 
continued residence of 21 years an indispensable 
requisite for citizenship hereafter, and excluding all 
paupers, and persons convicted of crime, from land- 
ing upon our shores, but no interference with the 
vested rights of foreigners. Opposition to any union 
between Church and State; no interference with 
religious faith, or worship, and no test oaths for 
office. 

The convention was composed of 227 delegates, 
all the States being represented except Maine, 
Vermont, Georgia, and South Carolina. Millard 
Fillmore was nominated for President, and Andrew 
J. Donelson for Vice-President. 

The Whig Convention endorsed the nominations 
made by the American party, and in its platform de- 
clared that " the Union is in peril, and our convic- 
tion is, that the restoration of Mr. Fillmore to the 
Presidency will furnish the best means of restoring 
peace. ' ' 

The first National Convention of the new Repub- 
lican party met at Philadelphia, June 18, 1856, and 
nominated John C. Fremont for President, and Wil- 
liam L. Dayton for Vice-President. The Republican 
party, still composed of uncertain elements, sought 
only for a candidate that was available. Seward or 
Chase was the natural candidate. Both were fully 
identified with the principles and purposes of their 



jS 2 lives of the presidents. 

party. Both were men of marked ability, strong in 
their respective States, each elected governor of his 
State and sure of its support; but Chase was opposed 
on account of his advanced opinions on the slavery 
question, and Seward was actively opposed by the 
so-called American party for his open hostility to its 
principles and policy. Thus it came to pass that 
public opinion gradually but strongly turned to John 
C. Fremont, who had no experience in public life, 
but who had attracted attention by his bold explora- 
tions in the West, and especially by his marching to 
California, and occupation of that Mexican territory. 

This convention met in pursuance of a call ad- 
dressed to the people of the United States, without 
regard to past political differences or divisions, who 
were opposed to the repeal of the Missouri Compro- 
mise; to the policy of President Pierce's Administra- 
tion; to the extension of slavery into free territory, 
and in favor of the admission of Kansas as a free 
State, and of restoring the action of the Federal 
Government to the principles of Washington and 
Jefferson. 

The Democrats of Pennsylvania nominated James 
Buchanan of Pennsylvania for President, and John 
C. Breckenridge of Kentucky for Vice-President ; 
Pierce being his chief competitor, receiving 122 
ballots on the first vote. Its platform declared (1) 
that the revenue to be raised should not exceed the 
actual necessary expenses of the Government, and 
for the gradual extinction of the public debt; (2) that 
the Constitution does not confer upon the general 
Government the power to commence and carry on a 
general system of internal improvements; (3) for a 




JOHN C. FREMONT. 163 

{Major- General in the Union Army.} 



164 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

strict construction of the powers granted by the 
Constitution to the Federal Government; (4) that 
Congress has no power to charter a national bank; 
(5) that Congress has no power to interfere with 
slavery in the States and Territories; the people of 
which have the exclusive right and power to settle 
that question for themselves. (6) Opposition to 
native Americanism. 

At the election which followed, the Democratic 
candidates were elected, though by a popular 
minority vote, having received 1,838,160 popular 
votes, and 174 electoral votes, against 2,215,768 
popular votes, and 122 electoral votes for John C. 
Fremont, the Republican candidate, and Millard 
Fillmore, the Whig and American candidate. 

Pierce's election was the last national contest in 
which the Whig party had an active share. It had 
never succeeded in breaking the power of its oppo- 
nent. Twice its candidate had been elected, but in 
both cases success was due to the personal popularity 
and military reputation of the candidates. Both 
died early, one in a month, and the other in a trifle 
over a year after inauguration. 

Franklin Pierce returned to private life, March 4, 
1857. His administration was made entirely sub- 
servient to the interests of slavery. Whatever repu- 
tation it may have won was wholly due to Governor 
Marcy, whose wise management of our foreign affairs 
ranked him anions: the great men of our times. In 
1863, Pierce made a speech at Concord against the 
Coercion of the Confederates. He died October 8, 
1869, and was buried at Concord, New Hampshire. 



JAMES BUCHANAN. ^5 



JAMES BUCHANAN— 1857-1861. 

James Buchanan, our fourteenth President, was 
born in Pennsylvania, April 23, 1791, and next to 
Harrison he was the oldest of the Presidents at the 
time of his election. He was well educated, studied 
law, and was admitted to practice in 1812. He was 
elected to his State Legislature when he was 23 
years old. In 1822 he entered Congress, and con- 
tinued till 183 1, when he declined a re-election. 
Jackson sent him as Minister to Russia in 1832. On 
his return home in 1834 he was elected to the Senate, 
where he served till 1845, when he resigned his seat 
to become President Polk's Secretary of State. In 
1853 Pierce appointed him Minister to England, 
where he remained till 1856. He was one of the 
three American Ministers who signed the document 
known as the "Ostend Manifesto," advising our 
Government to seize Cuba by force if it could not 
be purchased from Spain. With England, France, 
and Spain against us, seizing Cuba was, of course, 
out of the question. On his return he was nomi- 
nated for the Presidency by the Democrats, and 
elected; was sworn into office March 4, 1857, and 
served out the full term of four years. In early life 
he was classed with the Federalists, but abandoned 
them on account of their opposition to the War of 
18 1 2. He ever afterwards acted with the Democrats. 

Lew T is Cass of Michigan was called to the State 
Department; Howell Cobb of Georgia was made 
Secretary of the Treasury; and John B. Floyd of 
Virginia was at the head of the War Department; 



x 56 lives of the presidents. 

Jeremiah S. Black of Pennsylvania was appointed 
Attorney-General; Jacob Thompson of Mississippi 
was made Secretary of the Interior, and served out 
his full term; Isaac Toucey of Connecticut was 
Secretary of the Navy. 

The advent of Mr. Buchanan was preceded by 
symptoms which looked like a general disruption of 
society, and he was hardly in a very hopeful mood 
when he delivered his inaugural. In that address, he 
stated that he had determined not to become a can- 
didate for re-election, and would have no motive to 
influence his conduct, except the desire to serve his 
country, and to live in the grateful memory of his 
countrymen. They had recently, he observed, 
passed through a Presidential contest in which the 
passions of their fellow-citizens had been excited in 
the highest degree by questions of deep and vital 
importance. Referring to the Kansas difficulty, he 
said: ''Congress is neither to legislate slavery into 
any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom; 
but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form 
and regulate their domestic institutions in their own 
way, subject only to the Constitution of the United 
States." Buchanan was not the man to condemn 
anything which favored the interests of the slave- 
holding States. 

At the very outset of his Presidency the slave 
question was once more before the law courts. A 
negro, named Dred Scott, claimed his freedom on 
the score of residing in a State from which slavery 
had been excluded by the Missouri Compromise. 
In delivering judgment, the Supreme Court declared 
that the Missouri Compromise exceeded the powers 



JAMES BUCHANAN. 



167 



of Congress by its invasion of State rights and sov- 
ereignty; that men of African race were not citizens 




JAMES BUCHANAN. 



of the United States; that the residence of a slave 
in a free State did not affect his legal condition on 



[68 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

returning to a State where slavery was allowed by 
law; and that the negro had no rights which the 
white man was bound to respect. It was also decided 
that the ordinance of 1787, so far as it prohibited 
slavery from the North-west Territory, was uncon- 
stitutional. Thus all legislation against the exten- 
sion of slavery, from the formation of the Constitution 
to that very year, was swept away at one blow. 
Such was the decision of the Democratic judges, 
who were in the majority; two other judges, who 
were Whigs, were in favor of the negro's claim. 
Great disappointment was felt at the North; but all 
such decisions helped forward the catastrophe by 
which slavery was blotted out forever. 

A convention to frame a Constitution for Kansas 
met at Lecompton. A large majority of its members 
were in favor of establishing slavery in Kansas. 
All the white male inhabitants of the Territory 
above the age of 21 were entitled to vote. They 
were to vote by ballots which were endorsed, ' ' Con- 
stitution with Slavery," and "Constitution with no 
Slavery." If the Constitution with no Slavery 
were carried, it was expressly declared that no slav- 
ery should exist in the State, excepting to this ex- 
tent, that the right of property in slaves then in the 
Territory should not be interfered with. The 
exception was a serious one, because many slave- 
holders had gone therewith their human cattle; but 
such was the tenderness of the convention towards 
these men that they were permitted to take advan- 
tage of their own wrong. To Buchanan, this 
arrangement seemed fair and admirable. Referring 
to the negroes already in the Territory, he said: — 



JAMES BUCHANAN. 



169 



The Free State settlers refused to vote, and the 
Lecompton Constitution with Slavery received 6000 




A HOMESTEAD IN KANSAS. 



majority. The President desired to admit Kansas 
under this Constitution. He was supported by all 

and opposed by the 



the Southern Congressmen 



tjO LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

Republicans and the " Douglas " Democrats. The 
Senate passed a bill for the admission of Kansas. It 
went to the House, where a proviso was tacked on to 
the bill sending it back to the people of Kansas for a 
new vote on the Lecompton Constitution, where it 
was rejected by more than 10,000 majority. A new 
Convention met at Wyandot in July, 1859, where a 
Constitution was adopted prohibiting slavery. This 
was submitted to the people and received a majority 
in its favor of over 4000 votes. So Kansas was ad- 
mitted into the Union as a Free State, January 
29, 1861. 

The financial condition of the country, Buchanan 
described as without a parallel. The nation was 
positively embarassed by too large a surplus. Not- 
withstanding this, commercial panics created far- 
spread ruin in the fall of 1857. A condition of gen- 
eral prosperity had existed for years, and it was de- 
clared that this had led to overtrading, and a serious 
revulsion set in. According to the President the 
troubles proceeded from a vicious system of paper- 
currency and bank credits exciting the people to 
wild speculations, and to gambling in stocks. In the 
midst of unsurpassed plenty in all the productions 
of agriculture and all the elements of national 
wealth, manufactures were suspended, public works 
retarded, private enterprises abandoned, and thou- 
sands of laborers thrown out of employment. There 
were about 1400 State Banks, acting independently 
of each other, and regulating their paper issues 
almost exclusively by a regard to the present 
interests of their stockholders. 



172 



LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 



No crisis was ever so unexpected, none ever 
culminated so rapidly, or proved so destructive. 
The commercial "suspensions" were wholly due to 
the breakdown of credit ; the greater part were per- 
fectly solvent, and able to resume as soon as the 
effects of the panic were over. It is important to 
observe that not only were the New York and 
Eastern banks perfectly solvent, but their notes were 
never mistrustel; and after the suspension of pay- 
ments in specie, their notes continued to circulate 
at par. It was a run for deposits which shut up 
the banks; and a similar run would shut up every 
bank in existence. The crisis spread to England. 
The great London joint-stock banks and discount 
houses suspended, as did those in Hamburg, and the 
Bank of England, after increasing its discount rate 
from six to ten per cent, was forced to suspend specie 
payments. Then the tide turned. 

A menacing question was the condition of Utah. 
Brigham Young was by Federal appointment the 
Governor of the Territory and Superintendent of 
Indian Affairs ; he was at the same time head of the 
church called "the Latter-Day Saints," and professed 
to govern its members and dispose of their property 
by direct inspiration and authority from God. His 
power was therefore absolute over both Church and 
State ; and if he chose that his government should 
come into collision with the General Government, 
the members of the Mormon Church would yield 
implicit obedience to his will. The position looked 
threatening, and it was made more difficult by the 
enormous distance the Federal troops had to traverse. 



l 7 4 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

and the rugged and inhospitable desert which lay 
between them and their enemy. The trouble was 
temporarily quieted by a compromise; but the Mor- 
mon difficulty yet remained for more effectual settle- 
ment in later years. The Pacific Railroad was at that 
time only talked about. 

In 1859 the Atlantic cable was successfully laid 
across the ocean, and America and Europe were 
united by telegraph. The first message occupied but 
thirty-five minutes in its transmission. The cable 
had been hastily manufactured, and was not fitted 
to bear the strain to which it was subjected. In a 
little while the insulation of the wire became faulty 
and the power of transmitting intelligence ceased. 
[So that through the War of the Rebellion, from 
1 861 to 1865, we could communicate with Europe 
only in the old-fashioned way.] A new company 
was formed in i860. Various attempts were made, 
and, after repeated failures, the cable was finally laid 
in 1866; since which time it has been in successful 
operation between our shores and those of Great 
Britain. 

The Pacific Railway was another great project of 
this time. Buchanan, in 1858, observed, "twelve 
months ago a road to the Pacific was held by many 
wise men to be a visionary subject. They had argued 
that the immense distance to be overcome, and the 
intervening mountains and deserts, were obstacles 
that could never be surmounted. We have seen 
mail-coaches with passengers, passing and repassing 
twice a week, by a common wagon-road, between 
San Francisco and St. Louis and Memphis, in less 
than twenty-five days ;" and he urged that the Gov- 



JAMES BUCHANAN. jy 5 

ernmeut should undertake the work as speedily as 
possible. Congress acknowledged the force of these 
words, and the Pacific Railway has been one of the 
greatest achievements of our genius, skill, and cap- 
ital. 

Before the end of Buchanan's Administration, and 
on the day that Sumter was fired upon by the Con- 
federate Government, and while England and France 
and the rest of Europe were watching what they 
looked upon as the distinct " dissolution of the great 
American Union," and facetiously styling us the 
"Untied States," the Representatives in Congress 
of "free men, free speech, free press, free soil, and 
freedom," were voting the expenditures necessary 
to build the Pacific Railway, uniting the Atlantic to 
to the Pacific Ocean, and proclaiming one undivided 
Nation ! 

John Brown, a native of Connecticut, had been 
for many years the terror of slave-holders. He was 
an Abolitionist. To him slavery was a sin, and to 
tolerate it in any way, or for any period, was a crime. 
He belonged to the farmer class, simple in manners, 
truthful in nature, fanatical in his convictions, and 
beyond the influence of fear. In Kansas he fought 
the Pro-Slavery party with courage, and often de- 
feated them with loss. He had sons like himself, 
and two of these, who had settled in Kansas, were 
murdered by the " border ruffians." 

He resolved to attack Harper's Ferry, in Virginia, 
and make it the starting-point of his attempt to 
rouse the negroes of the Southern States. He col- 
lected a band of 20 white men, and seized the Fed- 
eral Armory at Harper's Ferry, where he was 



176 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

speedily joined by several hundred sympathizers. 
Arms were hastily despatched towards the South, 
and every inducement was held out to the negroes 
to en^aoe in a general revolt. 

Next morning the townspeople attacked the arm- 
ory. Of course, Brown could not successfully repel 
any regular assault. He and his followers refused 
to surrender, but they were captured. Brown was 
wounded in several places in the final attack; his 
remaining two sons were slain; and others of his 
followers lay dead about the arsenal. 

He had acted according to an imperative sense of 
duty; he had set his life upon a desperate cast, and, 
having failed, he was prepared to meet the conse- 
quences with that quiet courage which was a con- 
spicuous part of his nature. He was 59 years old, 
rather small-sized, with keen, restless, gray eyes, 
and a grizzly beard and hair; wiry, active, and de- 
termined. 

His conviction was a foregone conclusion, as the 
conviction of any man must be who is taken in the 
act of breaking the laws. He was warmly supported 
by the Northern Abolitionists; but more temperate 
politicians deplored the error he had committed, and 
saw there was no reasonable hope of his being spared. 
He was found guilty October 31, and was hung 
December 2, 1859. His companions were hung 
in March, i860. 

John Brown's attempt had failed. It was rash, 
hopeless, ill-advised, if we consider nothing but the 
immediate consequences; but it led to vast results 
in a future which was not distant. It made still 
more obvious the utter incompatibility of a Free 



JAMES BUCHANAN. 



177 



North and a Slave-holding South. It quickened 
throughout all the Northern States a passion of re- 
forming zeal. It roused the fears and armed the 
hands of Southern planters, and made them compre- 
hend that this 
dread ques- 
tion must be 
brought to an 
issue, fierce, 
agonizing, 
and conclu- 
sive. It caused 
both sides to 
understand 
their wishes 
and their will 
better than 
they had ever 
understood 
them before. 
It cleared 
away a mass 
of equivoca- 
tion s, eva- 
sions, compro- 
john brown. mises^and in- 

sincerities. It 
placed the moral law above the constitutional, and 
called sternly and sharply on all men to choose their 
color, and to abide by it. The coming Presidential 
election was determined beforehand by that Vir- 
ginian execution: the victory of Abraham Lincoln 
dates from the defeat of Harper's Ferry. 




1 78 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

The Democratic Convention met at Charleston, 
South Carolina, April 23, i860. Caleb dishing, from 
Massachusetts, presided. 

Three years earlier, the man most favored by the 
Democrats, as their probable candidate at the next 
Presidential election, was Senator Douglas, of Illi- 
nois, whose Kansas-Nebraska Bill was held to have 
given him great claims on the South. But he con- 
sidered that the slave-holders had gained enough, and 
he was unwilling to grant them anything more. He 
opposed Buchanan's zealous efforts to obtain the ad- 
mission of Kansas to the Union as a slave State, and 
had thus earned the hatred of the extreme members 
of the Democratic party. 

Before the balloting began, a reaffirmance of the 
two-thirds rule was resolved upon. It was well 
known that this resolution rendered the regular nomi- 
nation of Douglas impossible. 

The balloting began on the eighth day of the ses- 
sion. Necessary to a nomination, 202 votes. Doug- 
las received 145^ votes; Mr. Hunter, of Virginia, 
42 ; Mr. Guthrie, of Kentucky, 35 i/J ; with some few 
scattering votes. 

There were 54 additional ballotings. Douglas never 
rose to more than 152^, and ended in 151^2 votes. 

In the hope that some compromise might be 
effected, the convention, adjourned to meet at Balti- 
more on June 18, i860. 

At this convention Douglas received 181 ]/ 2 votes, 
and was accordingly declared to be the regular 
nominee of the Democratic party of the Union. 

Senator Fitzpatrick, of Alabama, was nominated 



JAMES BUCHANAN, 



179 



as the candidate for Vice-President, but declined 
the nomination, and it was conferred on Herschel 




STEPHEN ARNOLD DOUGLAS. 

V. Johnson, of Georgia, by the Executive Com- 
mittee. Thus ended the Douglas Convention. 

Another convention assembled at Baltimore on 



180 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

June 23, styling itself the "National Democratic 
Convention." It was composed chiefly of the dele- 
gates who had withdrawn from the Douglas Con- 
vention, and the original delegates from Alabama 
and Louisiana. They abrogated the two-third rule, 
as had been done by the Douglas Convention. 
Both acted under the same necessity, because the 
preservation of this rule would have prevented a 
nomination by either. 

Mr. Cushing presided here also. 

The following names were presented to the con- 
vention for the nomination of President: John C. 
Breckenridge, of Kentucky, R. M. T. Hunter, of 
Virginia, Daniel S. Dickinson, of New York and 
Joseph Lane, of Oregon. 

Eventually all these names were withdrawn ex- 
cept that of John C. Breckenridge, and he received 
the nomination by a unanimous vote. The whole 
number of votes cast in his favor from twenty States 
was 103^. 

General Lane was nominated as the candidate 
for Vice-President. Thus terminated the Brecken- 
ridge Convention. 

The Republicans met at Chicago, May 16, i860. 
They were greatly encouraged by the large vote for 
Fremont and Dayton, and what had now become 
apparent as an irreconcilable division of the Democ- 
racy, encouraged them in the belief that they 
could elect their candidates. Those of the West 
were especially enthusiastic, and had contributed 
freely to the erection of an immense "Wigwam," 
capable of holding 10,000 people, at Chicago. All 
the Northern States were fully represented, and there 



JAMES BUCHANAN. 



181 



were delegations 



tucky, 

gates 

other 

States, 

being 



from Delaware, Maryland, Ken- 
Missouri and Virginia, with occasional dele- 
fro m 
Slave 
there 
none, 
however, 
from the Gulf 
States. David 
Wilmot was 
chairman. No 
d i ff e r e n c e s 
were excited 
by the report 
of the com- 
mittee on 
platform, and 
the proceed- 
ings through- 
out were char- 
acterized by 
great harmo- 
ny, though 
there was a 
sharp contest 
for the nomi- 
nation. The 
prom in en t 
candidates 
were William 

H. Seward, of New York ; Abraham Lincoln, of 
Illinois ; Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio ; Simon Cam- 
eron, of Pennsylvania, and Edward Bates, of Mis* 




JOHN C. BRECKENRIDGE. 



1 82 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

souri. There were three ballots, Lincoln receiving 
in the last 354 out of 446 votes. Seward led the 
vote at the beginning, but he was strongly opposed 
by gentlemen in his own State as prominent as 
Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York Tribune, 
the Republican organ of the country, and Thurlow 
Weed, the then political leader of New York State, 
and his nomination was thought to be inexpedient. 
Lincoln had been a candidate but a month or two 
before, while Seward's name had been everywhere 
canvassed, and where opposed in the Eastern and 
Middle States, it was mainly because of the belief 
that his views on slavery were too radical. He was 
more strongly favored by the Abolition branch of 
the party than any other candidate. When the 
news of his success was conveyed to Lincoln he 
read it in silence, and then announcing the re- 
sult said: "There is a little woman down at our 
house would like to hear this — I'll go down and 
tell her," and he started amid the shouts of personal 
admirers. Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, was nomi- 
nated for Vice-President with much unanimity, and 
the Chicago Convention closed its work in a single 
day. 

A " Constitutional Union," or an American Con- 
vention, met on May 9. Twenty States were repre- 
sented, and John Bell of Tennessee, and Edward 
Everett of Massachusetts, were named for the Pres- 
idency and Vice-Presidency. Their friends, though 
known to be less in number than either those of 
Douglas, Lincoln or Breckenridge, yet made a vig- 
orous canvass in the hope that the election would be 
thrown into the House, and that there a compromise 




JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

{President of the Southern Confederacy.) 183 



^4 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS, 

in the vote by States would naturally turn toward 
their candidates. The result of this greatest contest 
is given below. 

Lincoln received large majorities in nearly all of 
the free States, his popular vote being 1,866,452 ; 
electoral vote, 180. Douglas was next in the pop- 
ular estimate, receiving 1,375,157 votes, with but 12 
electors; Breckenridge had 847,953 votes, with 76 
electors; Bell, with 570,631 votes, had 39 electors. 

The principles involved in the controversy were 
briefly these : The Republican party asserted that 
slavery should not be extended to the Territories ; 
that it could exist only by virtue of local and posi- 
tive law ; that freedom was national ; that slavery was 
sectional and morally wrong, and the nation should 
at least anticipate its gradual extinction. The Doug- 
las wing of the Democratic party adhered to the 
doctrine of popular sovereignty, and claimed that in 
its exercise in the Territories they were indiffer- 
ent whether slavery was voted up or down. The 
Breckenridge wing of the Democratic party asserted 
both the moral and legal right to hold slaves, and to 
carry them to the Territories, and that no power 
save the national Constitution could prohibit or in- 
terfere with it outside of State lines. The Americans 
supporting Bell adhered to their peculiar doctrines 
touching emigration and naturalization, but had 
abandoned, in most of the States, the secrecy and 
oaths of the Know-Nothing order. They were evas- 
ive and non-committal on the slavery question. 

The leaders in the South anticipated defeat at the 
election, and many of them made preparations for 




STREET IN NEW ORLEANS ON AN EJECTION DAY 



I8 5 



^6 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

the withdrawal of their States from the Union. 
Some of the more extreme anti-slavery men of the 
North, noting these preparations, for a time favored 
a plan of letting the South go in peace. South 
Carolina was the first to adopt a secession ordinance, 
and before it did so, Horace Greely said in the New 
York Tribune: 

" If the Declaration of Independence justified the 
secession from the British Empire of three millions 
of colonists in 1776, we cannot see why it would not 
justify the secession of five millions of Southrons 
from the Federal Union in 1861." 

These views fell into disfavor in the North, and 
the period of indecision on either side ceased when 
Fort Sumter was fired upon. The Gulf States 
openly made their preparations as soon as the result 
of the Presidential election was known. 

South Carolina naturally led off in the secession 
movement. Her Senators and Representatives re- 
signed from Congress early in November ; her Ordi- 
nance of Secession was unanimously adopted on the 
17th of November, i860. The other Southern States 
quickly followed her example. 

^The Secession Ordinance passed in some of the 
States by the vote of their conventions, where they 
refused to submit the ordinance to a popular vote. 
In others, it was put to a general vote, manipulated 
by the leaders, and in all cases the vote was over- 
whelmingly in favor of the separation. In several 
States the governors ordered a repudiation by their 
citizens of all debts due to Northern men. 

In Maryland, the governor declined to accept the 



JAMES BUCHANAN. r gj 

programme of Secession. Addresses for and against 
were frequent. 

The Southern Congress met on February 4, 1861. 
Howell Cobb of Georgia was elected President and 
announced that secession " is now a fixed and irrevo- 
cable fact, and the separation is perfect, complete 
and perpetual." At this Congress were delegates 
from South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, 
Florida and Mississippi. The Texas delegates were 
not appointed until February 14. A provisional 
Constitution was adopted, being the Constitution of 
the United States, with some changes. Jefferson 
Davis, of Mississippi, was chosen President, and 
Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, Vice-President. 
The laws and revenue officers of the United States 
were continued in the Confederate States until 
changed. Executive departments and a Confederate 
regular army were organized, and provision was 
made for borrowing money 011 March nth, the per- 
manent Constitution was adopted by Congress, and 
the first Confederate Congress was held, sitting from 
February 18, 1861, to April 21, 1862. 

In the first Congress members chosen by rump 
State conventions, or by regiments in the Confed- 
erate service, sat for districts in Missouri and 
Kentucky, though these States had never seceded. 
There were thus thirteen States in all represented at 
the close of the first Congress ; but as the area of the 
Confederacy narrowed before the advance of the 
Union armies, the vacancies in the second Congress 
became significantly more numerous. At its best the 
Confederate Senate numbered 26, and the House 106. 



1 88 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

For four months between the Presidential election 
and the inauguration of Lincoln those favoring 
secession in the South had practical control of their 
section, for while Buchanan hesitated as to his Con- 
stitutional powers, the more active partisans in his 
Cabinet were aiding their Southern friends in every 
practical way. 

The Confederate States was the name of the 
government formed in 1861 by the seven States 
which first seceded. Belligerent rights were ac- 
corded to it by the leading naval powers, but it was 
never recognized as a government, notwithstanding 
the persevering efforts of its agents at the principal 
courts. Lewis Cass resigned from the State Depart- 
ment, December 12, i860, because the President 
declined to reinforce the forts in Charleston Harbor. 
Howell Cobb, the Treasury, "because his duty to 
Georgia required it." 

John B. Floyd resigned as Secretary of War, be- 
cause the President declined " to withdraw the gar- 
rison from the harbor of Charleston altogether." Be- 
fore resigning he took care to transfer all the muskets 
and rifles from the Northern armories to arsenals in 
the South. All of these arms, except those sent to 
the North Carolina Arsenal, were seized by the States 
of South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana and Georgia, 
and were no longer in possession of the United 
States. 

Buchanan appealed to Congress to institute an 
amendment to the Constitution recognizing the 
rights of the Southern States in regard to slavery in 
the Territories : 




THE CONFEDERACY INAUGURATED. 



**9 



190 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

" I have purposely confined my remarks to revolu- 
tionary resistance, because it has been claimed within 
the last few years that any State, whenever this shall 
be its sovereign will and pleasure, may secede from 
the Union in accordance with the Constitution, and 
without any violation of the constitutional rights of 
the other members of the Confederacy. That as 
each became parties to the Union by the vote of its 
own people assembled in convention, so any one of 
them may retire from the Union in a similar manner 
by the vote of such a convention." * * * u I do not 
believe the Federal Government has the power to 
coerce a State." 

Senator Crittenden brought forward a compromise 
proposition suggesting that amendments to the Con- 
stitution be made to " avert the danger of separation." 
Memorials from the North and from New England 
poured in favoring his views. The President ex- 
erted all his influence in favor of these peace meas- 
ures. In his special Message to Congress, January 
8, 1 86 1, after depicting the consequences which had 
already resulted to the country from the bare appre- 
hension of civil war and the dissolution of the Union, 
he said : 

" Let the question be transferred from political 
assemblies to the ballot-box, and the people them- 
selves would speedily redress the serious grievances 
which the South have suffered. But, in heaven's 
name, let the trial be made before we plunge into 
armed conflict upon the mere assumption that there 
is no other alternative." 

This recommendation was totally disregarded. The 



JAMES BUCHANAN. jg r 

refusal to pass the Crittenden or any other compro- 
mise heightened the excitement in the South, where 
many showed great reluctance to dividing the Union. 
Georgia, though one of the cotton States, under the 
influence of conservative men like Alexander H. 
Stephens, showed greater concern for the Union 
than any other, and it took all the influence of spirits 
like that of Robert Toombs to bring her to favor 
secession. She was the most powerful of the cotton 
States and the richest, as she is to-day. 

With the close of Buchanan's Administration all 
eyes turned to Lincoln, and fears were entertained 
that the date fixed by law for the counting of the 
electoral vote, February 15, 1861, would inaugurate 
violence and bloodshed at the seat of government 
It passed peaceably. Both Houses met at noon in 
the House, Vice-President Breckenridge and Speaker 
Pennington, both Democrats, sitting side by side, 
and the count was made without challenge or ques- 
tion. A noted author of the time, thus epitomized 
the situation : " The Democratic Convention of 1856 
nominated Buchanan for the Presidency as the cham- 
pion of slavery ; and his administration was conducted 
solely in the interests of that institution. If Bu- 
chanan had any generous sympathies for liberty, or 
aspirations for perpetuating the Republic, he gave no 
intimation of it in any of his public acts. He uttered 
no rebuke against the open declaration of secession, 
and his most trusted counsellors were the deepest 
plotters for the overthrow of the Union. Even while 
the fires of rebellion were being lighted, he plead 
impotency to quench them. And thus, with the 



1 92 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

mingled imputation of imbecility and treason, he re- 
tired from Washington, his retreating footsteps almost 
lit up by the torch of the incendiaries who were set- 
ting fire to the Capitol. 

After his retirement from office he resided at 
Wheatland, Pennsylvania, where he died June i, 
1868. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN— 1861-1865. 

Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President, was 
born in Kentucky on February 12, 1809. Of his 
early years, he said himself in 1859: "My parents 
were both born in Virginia. My mother died in 
my tenth year. When I came of age I did not know 
much. I could read, write, and cipher to the rule 
of three, but that was all. The little advance I have 
now I picked up under the pressure of necessity. At 
21, I came to Illinois. I was raised to farm-work, 
which I continued till I was 22 years old. When 
the Black Hawk War came on, in 1832, I was elected 
a captain of volunteers. In 1833 I was sent to the 
Legislature, and re-elected for three succeeding 
terms. During my legislative period I studied law, 
and removed to Springfield to practise it. In 1846 
I was elected to the lower house of Congress. From 
1849 to J 854 I practised law. I was always a Whig 
in politics." 

In 1828 he made a trading voyage on a flatboat 
to New Orleans. Here the sight of slaves, chained 
and maltreated and flogged, was the origin of his 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



1 93 



deep convictions on the slavery question. In 1854 
he had the great debate with Douglas. From this 
he gained great popularity. He was proposed for the 




ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S EARI.Y HOME- 

Senate in 1855, but after several ballots Lyman 
Trumbull was chosen. 

When Fremont was nominated for the Presidency, 



194 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

Lincoln was put forward for the Vice-Presidency, 
receiving no votes; but the place went to William 
L. Dayton. In 1858 he ran against Douglas for the 
Senate and was beaten. In i860 the Republicans 
nominated him for the Presidency. He received the 
votes of every free State, while the votes of all the 
slave States were cast against him. He was unim- 
peachably elected, and on March 4, 1861, was inau- 
gurated in Washington, surrounded by soldiers under 
command of General Scott ; where he swore to 
" faithfully execute the office of President of the 
United States," and to the best of his ability, " pre- 
serve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the 
United States." In his address to Congress he said: 
"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, 
and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. 
The Government will not assail you. You can have 
no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. 
You have an oath registered in heaven to destroy 
the Government, while I shall have the most solemn 
one to 'preserve, protect, and defend it' " 

To his Cabinet he called William H. Seward of 
New York as Secretary of State; Salmon P. Chase 
of Ohio to the Treasury; Simon Cameron of Penn- 
sylvania to the War Office, and Edward Bates of 
Missouri was made Attorney-General. These gen- 
tlemen had been his rivals before the convention. 
The most eminent of these men was Seward. He 
was then about 60 years old, and had been connected 
with political affairs for 36 years. His principles 
were those of the Republican party, and he lost the 
nomination because it was feared his attitude in the 
slavery struggles would be too violent. When the 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



195 



" impending conflict" had come, he weakened before 
the threatened danger of separation, and considered 




ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



that " the Constitution must be upheld at any cost." 
This lost him the support of the Abolition dement 



196 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

in his party, who denounced him as a trimmer. He 
was a statesman of the world, and not disposed Lo 
risk his ends by rashness or scorn of compromise. 
His abilities and reputation marked him out for the 
chief post under the administration, and his name will 
always be closely associated with that of Lincoln. He 
expressed the view that "all troubles will be over 
in 90 days." Chase represented the more advanced 
anti-slavery element. Cameron, with a large busi- 
ness instinct, saw from the first that we were in for a 
prolonged war, in which the superior Northern re- 
sources and appliances would surely win. 

On March 5, 1861, came the Commissioners ap- 
pointed by the Confederate Government to' open 
negotiations at Washington. Seward refused to rec- 
ognize them on the ground that the States were 
acting illegally and in defiance of the Constitution. 
The Commissioners left on April 11, after addressing 
an angry communication repeating the assertions 
with regard to the right of secession, and denying 
the possibility of the Government ever winning 
back the seceding States, or subduing them by force. 

Before Lincoln had entered office, most of the 
Southern forts, arsenals, docks, custom houses, etc., 
had been seized, and now that preparations were 
being made for active warfare by the Confederacy, 
many officers of the army and navy resigned or 
deserted, and joined it. The most notable was 
General Robert B. Lee, who for a time hesitated as 
to his "duty," but finally went with his State, Vir- 
ginia. All officers were permitted to go, the ad- 
ministration not seeking to restrain any, under the 
belief that, until some open act of war was com- 




WILLIAM H. biiWARD. 



I 9 7 



IoS LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

mitted, it ought to remain on the defensive. This 
was wise political policy, for it did more than all 
else to hold the Border States, the position of which 
Douglas understood fully as well as any statesman 
of that hour. 

He was asked, "What will be the result of the 
efforts of Jefferson Davis, and his associates, to di- 
vide the Union?" "Rising, and looking, like 
one inspired, Douglas replied, ' The cotton States are 
making an effort to draw in the border States to 
their schemes of secession, and I am but too fearful 
they will succeed. If they do succeed, there will be 
the most terrible civil war the world has ever seen, 
lasting for years. Virginia will become a charnel 
house, but the end will be the triumph of the Union 
cause. One of their first efforts will be to take pos- 
session of this Capitol to give them prestige abroad, 
but they will never succeed in taking it — the North 
will rise en masse to defend it; but Washington will 
become a city of hospitals — the churches will be 
used for the sick and wounded.' The friend to 
whom this was said inquired, ( What justification 
for all this ? ' Douglas replied, ' There is no justifica- 
tion, nor any pretence of any — if they remain in the 
Union, I will go as far as the Constitution will per- 
mit to maintain their just rights, and I do not doubt 
a majority of Congress would do the same. But if 
the Southern States attempt to secede from this 
Union, without further cause, I am in favor of their 
having just so many slaves, and just so much slave 
territory, as they can hold at the point of the 
bayonet, and NO MORE.' " 

In the border States of Maryland, Virginia, North 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



199 



Carolina, Tennessee and Missouri there were sharp 
political contests between the friends of secession 
and of the Union. Ultimately the Unionists tri- 
umphed in Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri — in 




SALMON P. CHASE. 



the latter State by the active aid of U. S. troops — 
in Maryland and Kentucky by military orders to 
arrest any members of the Legislature conspiring to 
take their States out. In Tennessee, the Union 



2 oo LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

men, under the lead of Governor Andrew Johnson, 
made a gallant fight to keep the State in, and they 
had the sympathy of the majority of the people of 
East Tennessee. The leading Southerners encour- 
aged the timid and hesitating by saying the North 
would not make war; that the political divisions 
would be too great there. 

When the news flashed along the wires that Sum- 
ter had been fired upon, Lincoln immediately used 
his war powers and issued a call for 75,000 troops. 
All of the Northern Governors responded with 
promptness and enthusiasm. 

The Southerners were more military than the 
Northerners; they were accustomed to the saddle 
and the use of firearms ; the Northerners had to 
learn how to load and fire a gun after they joined the 
army. Several battles of little consequence were 
fought to secure control of Western Virginia. The 
Northern newspapers were clamoring for a forward 
movement. "On to Richmond," was the constant 
cry. On July 21, 1861, was fought the Battle of 
Bull Run. It was a severe one and the losses on 
both sides were heavy. The Confederates, being re- 
inforced at the right moment, routed the Union 
Army, which fled back to Washington. It was now 
realized that we had entered into a war in earnest, 
and on July 22, 1861, Congress authorized the en- 
listment of 500,000 men, for a period not exceeding 
three years. Other large requisitions for volunteers 
were subsequently made. We shall not attempt to 
relate the history of the battles for the Union. 

The last great battle was at Gettysburg, Pennsyl- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



201 



vania, where General Iyee was repulsed. He sur- 
rendered his army to General Grant on April 9, 1865. 
With the surrender of L,ee, the last hope of Southern 
independence vanished. 

During all the war period the Union newspapers 
published accounts of all the movements of the 
armies ; the Confederates were constantly supplied 
with information by secession sympathizers ; attempts 




THE CONFEDERATE FEAG. 

were made to release the Confederate prisoners of 
war ; infected clothing was brought from Canada and 
sold in New York and elsewhere; attempts were 
made to burn the hotels in New York City. Oppo- 
sition was made to the draft there and a riot ensued. 
The fury of the mob was several days beyond con- 
trol, and troops had to be called from the front to 
suppress it. It was afterwards ascertained that Con- 



2o2 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

federate agents really organized the riot as a move- 
ment to "take the enemy in the rear." 

After this riot a more vigorous prosecution of the 
war was determined upon. 

The Confederates conscripted all white men, resi- 
dents of their States, between the ages of 17 and 
50 — as it was said, " everybody capable of bearing 
arms, from the cradle to the grave." Their newspa- 
pers were not allowed to make any mention of the 
military movements. 

In March, 1862, Lincoln was impressed with the 
idea that great good would follow compensated 
emancipation in the Border States, and he suggested 
to Congress the passing of such a law. Various 
measures relating to compensated emancipation were 
considered in both Houses, but it was dropped in 
March, 1863. Lincoln determined upon a more radi- 
cal policy, and on September 22, 1862, issued his 
celebrated proclamation declaring that he would eman- 
cipate " all persons held as slaves within any State or 
designated part of a State, the people whereof shall 
be in rebellion against the United States " — by the 
first of January, 1863, if such sections were not "in 
good faith represented in Congress." He followed 
this by actual emancipation at the time stated. 

These proclamations were followed by many at- 
tempts on the part of the Democrats to declare them 
null and void ; but all such were tabled. The House, 
on December 15, 1862, endorsed the first by a vote of 
78 to 51, almost a strict party vote. Two classed as 
Democrats voted for emancipation; seven classed as 
Republicans voted against it. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 2 OT, 

On July 14, 1862, West Virginia was admitted into 
the Union. She had separated in the early years of 
the war from the mother State, which had seceded. 

The capture of New Orleans led to the enrolment of 
60,000 citizens of Louisiana as citizens of the United 
States. The President thereupon appointed a Military 
Governor for the entire State, and this Governor 
ordered an election for members of Congress under 
the old State Constitution. This was held December 
3, 1862, when Flanders and Hahn were returned, 
neither receiving 3,000 votes. They received certifi- 
cates, presented them, and thus opened up a new and 
grave political question. The Democrats opposed 
their admission. The vote stood 92 for to 44 against, 
almost a strict party test, the Democrats voting no. 

On December 15, 1863, was passed the first Re- 
construction Act, authorizing the President to ap- 
point in each of the States declared in rebellion, a 
Provisional Governor; to be charged with the civil 
administration until a State government therein shall 
be recognized. 

The Presidential election of 1 864 came round. The 
Republicans renominated President Lincoln unan- 
imously, save the vote of Missouri, which was cast 
for General Grant. Hannibal Hamlin was not re- 
nominated, because of a desire to give part of the 
ticket to the union men of the South, who pressed 
Andrew Johnson of Tennessee. There was some 
opposition to Lincoln's second nomination, which 
was dissipated by his homely remark that " it was 
bad policy to swap horses in crossing a stream." 
This emphasized the general belief. 



204 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



The Democrats nominated General George B. 

McClellan of New Jersey for President, and George 
H. Pendleton of Ohio for Vice-President. General 
McClellan was made available for the Democratic 
nomination through certain political letters which 




GENERAL GEORGE B. McCEElvLAN. 



he had written on points of difference between him- 
self and the Iyincoln Administration. 

The Democratic platform carried this resolution, 
which sufficiently explains its attitude: 

Resolved, That this convention does explicitly de- 
clare, as the sense of the American people, that after 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 205 

four years of failure to restore the Union by the 
experiment of war, during which, under the pretence 
of a military necessity of a war power higher than 
the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been 
disregarded in every part, and public liberty and 
private right alike trodden down, and the material 
prosperity of the country essentially impaired, jus- 
tice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare de- 
mand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation 
of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate convention 
of all the States, or other peaceable means, to the 
end that, at the earliest practicable moment, peace 
may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union 
of all the States. 

Lincoln's views were well known; they were felt 
in the general conduct of the war. The campaign 
was exciting, and was watched by both armies with 
interest and anxiety. In this election, by virtue of 
an act of Congress, the soldiers in the field were 
permitted to vote, and a large majority of every 
branch of the service sustained the administration, 
though two years before, McClellan had been the 
idol of the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln and 
Johnson received 212 electoral votes, against 21 for 
McClellan and Pendleton. 

In President Lincoln's second inaugural address, 
delivered on March 4, 1865, he spoke the following 
words, since oft quoted as typical of the kindly dis- 
position of the man believed by his party to be 
the greatest President since Washington: "With 
malice toward none, with charity for all, with firm- 
ness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, 
let us strive on to finish the work we are in, 



2o6 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

to bind up the Nation's wounds, to care for him 
who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow 
and orphans — to do all which may achieve a just 
and lasting peace among ourselves and with all 
nations." 

April, 1865, was a month of triumph and of mourn- 
ing. In its earlier days, Richmond was occupied by 
the forces of the Union, and Lee surrendered to 
Grant. In its later days, Sherman achieved his 
final success, and the Confederacy, except in a few 
scattered members, lay dead before its foe. But be- 
tween those two sets of events occurred a tragedy 
which had no parallel in American annals, which 
convulsed the nation with rage and grief. For the 
first time in the records of the Republic, political 
assassination struck down the head of the Govern- 
ment, and sought with hasty and murderous hands 
to settle the great problems of the day. 

Lincoln had entered on his second term not more 
than six weeks when the bullet of an assassin closed 
his mortal career. He had nearly seen the end of the 
great contest for which his first election served as the 
pretext; but many difficulties yet remained to be 
overcome. The roughly-hewn, shaggy, uncouth face 
brightened now and then with its pleasant and genial 
smile ; but the lines were more deeply furrowed than 
they had been a few years before, and the shadows of 
vast responsibilities gave something of sublimity to 
features that were homely in themselves. 

Lincoln visited Ford's theatre in Washington 
where he was shot in the head by an actor named 



ANDRE IV JOHNSON. 2 oy 

Wilkes Booth. Booth fled to Virginia, where he was 
hunted down by a part}' of cavalry and shot. 

Lincoln lingered for several hours, but on the 
morning of April 15th, he breathed his last. About 
the same time that the murder of the President was 
being committed, an attempt was made to assassinate 
Secretary Seward. 

In the agitation of the public mind consequent on 
these daring and extraordinary crimes, it was not 
unreasonably believed that a vast conspiracy had 
been planned by Southern politicians, to effect by 
murder what they could not accomplish by military 
force. 

The funeral of Abraham Lincoln was conducted 
with unexampled solemnity and magnificence. The 
coffin was carried on a huge catafalque, where it 
could be viewed by the multitudes in the various 
cities through which the funeral cortege passed, on 
its way from Washington to Oak Ridge Cemetery, 
near Springfield, Illinois, where he was buried May 
4, 1865. His remains were placed in an appropriate 
tomb on October 15, 1874. 



ANDREW JOHNSON— 1 865-1869. 

Andrew Johnson, our seventeenth President, 
was inaugurated on the same morning that Lincoln 
died. No man thus called to administer a great 
Government could have satisfied his party ; and he 
went through his term with little peace or success. 



2 o8 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

He was born in North Carolina, December 29, 
1808. He was born in the obscurest poverty, and 
received no schooling. At ten he was apprenticed 
to a tailor. While a young man, he started for 
Tennessee with his widowed mother to find a home. 
Ambitious to better his condition, he became his 
own teacher. Marrying a girl of superior intelli- 
gence, she taught him to write and cipher. He 
dashed into local politics; he rose steadily, step by 
step, to the State Senate; then to Congress, where 
he remained ten years. He was twice elected Gov- 
ernor of Tennessee, and in 1857 was sent to the 
Senate. Thus his acquaintance with political life 
was not small, or wanting in variety. Like most 
self-made men, he was a little ostentatious in talking 
about his plebeian origin, and of what he owed to 
the people. But his conduct in the Senate showed 
him to be a man of sense and moderation. He car- 
ried through the Homestead Law, for which his 
name is gratefully remembered in many homes 
throughout the broad West. At the beginning of 
the war Lincoln appointed him the Military Gov- 
ernor of Tennessee, where he distinguished himself 
by vigor and resolution, and nerved the hunted 
friends of the Union. 

At the start of his Presidential career he seemed 
to range himself on the side of the most extreme 
Northern politicians, and against those who were in 
favor of adopting a more conciliatory policy towards 
the South — an impression which his subsequent con- 
duct entirely removed. He said the time had arrived 
when the American people should understand that 
treason was a crime. To the mass of the misled he 



ANDRE W JOHNSON. 



209 



would say, "Mercy, clemency, reconciliation, and 
the restoration of local government;" but to the 




ANDREW JOHNSON. 



conscious, influential traitor, who had attempted to 
destroy the life of the nation, he would say: "On 
14 



2io LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

vou be inflicted the severest penalty of your crime. 
Mercy without justice would in itself be criminal." 
From evidence in the Bureau of Military Justice, 
he thought the assassination of Abraham Lincoln 
and the attempted assassination of Win. H. Seward, 
had been procured by Jefferson Davis, Clement C. 
Clay, Jacob Thompson, and "other rebels and trai- 
tors harbored in Canada." The evidence, however, 
showed that the scheme was harebrained, and from 
no responsible political source. The proclamation, 
however, gave keenness to the search for the fugitive 
Davis, and he was captured while making his way 
through Georgia to the Florida coast, with the in- 
tention of escaping from the country. He was im- 
prisoned in Fortress Monroe, and an indictment for 
treason was found against him; but he remained a 
close prisoner for nearly two years, until times when 
political policies had been changed or modified. 
Horace Greeley was one of his bondsmen. By this 
time there was grave doubt whether he could be 
legally convicted, now that the charge of inciting 
Booth's crime had been tacitly abandoned. Webster 
(in his Bunker Hill oration) had only given clearer 
expression to the American doctrine, that, after a 
revolt has levied a regular army, and fought there- 
with a pitched battle, its champions, even though 
utterly defeated, cannot be tried and convicted as 
traitors. This may be an extreme statement; but a 
rebellion which has for years maintained great 
armies, levied taxes and conscriptions, negotiated 
loans, fought scores of sanguinary battles with alter- 
nate successes and reverses, and exchanged tens of 
thousands of prisoners of war, can hardly fail to 



ANDRE W JOHNSON. 2 1 1 

have achieved thereby the position and the rights 
of a lawful belligerent. 

This view, as then presented by Greeley, was ac- 
cepted by the President, who from intemperate 
denunciation had become the friend of his old 
friends in the South. Greeley's view was not gen- 
erally accepted by the North, though most of the 
leading men of both parties hoped the responsibility 
of a trial would be avoided by the escape and flight 
of the prisoner. But he was confident by this time, 
and sought a trial. He was never tried, and the 
best reason for the fact is that no conviction was 
possible, except by packing a jury. 

On April 29, 1865, Johnson issued a proclamation 
removing all restrictions upon internal, domestic and 
coastwise and commercial intercourse in all Southern 
States east of the Mississippi ; the blockade was re- 
moved May 22, and on May 29 a proclamation of 
amnesty was issued, with fourteen classes excepted 
therefrom, and the requirement of an "ironclad 
oath" from those accepting its provisions. Procla- 
mations rapidly followed in shaping the lately rebel- 
lious States to the conditions of peace and restoration 
to the Union. These States were required to hold 
conventions, repeal secession ordinances, accept the 
abolition of slavery, repudiate Southern war debts, 
provide for Congressional representation, and elect 
new State officers and legislatures. The several 
Constitutional amendments were, of course, to be 
ratified by a vote of the people. These conditions 
were eventually all complied with, some of the States 
beine more tardv than others. 



212 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

It is not partisanship to say that Johnson's views 
underwent a change. So radical had this difference 
become that he vetoed nearly all of the political bills 
passed by the Republicans from 1866 until the end 
of his administration, but such was the Republican 
preponderance in both Houses of Congress that they 
passed them over his head by the necessary two-thirds 
vote. He vetoed the several Freedmen's Bureau Bills, 
the Civil Rights Bill, that for the admission of Ne- 
braska and Colorado, the Bill to permit Colored 
Suffrage in the District of Columbia, one of the 
Reconstruction Bills, and finally made a direct issue 
with the powers of Congress by his veto of the Civil 
Tenure Bill. 

General Butler charged the President with " at- 
tempting to bring Congress into disgrace, ridicule, 
hatred, contempt, and reproach, and with delivering 
intemperate, inflammatory, and scandalous har- 
angues, accompanied by threats and bitter menaces 
against Congress and the laws of the United States." 
Assuredly nothing could be more reprehensible than 
the language employed by the President on many 
public occasions in characterizing Congress as a 
" rump " and charging in substance that they were 
not a Congress authorized to execute legislative 
power, but on the contrary, represented only part of 
the States. It was therefore resolved to impeach him. 

The impeachment trial began on March 30, 1866. 
There being 27 States represented, there were 54 
Senators, who constituted the court, presided over 
by Chief Justice Chase. Many of the speeches for 
and against the impeachment were distinguished by 



A NDRE W JOHNSON. 2 1 3 

great brilliancy and power. The vote resulted in 
35 for conviction and 19 for acquittal. The Consti- 
tution requiring a vote of two-thirds to convict, the 
President was therefore acquitted. And so the trial 
ended. 

The political differences between the President 
and the Republicans were not softened by the at- 
tempted impeachment, and singularly enough the 
failure of their effort did not weaken the Republi- 
cans as a party. They were so well united that 
those who disagreed with them passed, at least tem- 
porarily, from public life, some of the ablest, like 
Senators Trumbull and Fessenden, retiring perma- 
nently. The President pursued his policy, save 
where he was hedged by Congress, until the end, 
and retired to his native State after Grant was inau- 
gurated on March 4, 1869. He tried to get back to 
the Senate in 1870, but was defeated; he was, how- 
ever, elected in 1875, and took his seat in the extra 
session in March. Great expectations were built 
upon his return to the Senate, but he died ere the 
anticipations could be fulfilled, on July 31, 1875. 
He was buried at Greenville, Tennessee. 

In 1867, Secretary Seward obtained an important 
addition to our territory by the purchase of Russian 
America, in the extreme north-west of the continent, 
for $7,000,000. This is called Alaska; and is on 
the other side of Canada. Some dissatisfaction was 
found with the purchase, as being of little commer- 
cial value, with Canada separating the two sections; 
but Canada, by the irresistible force of events, is 
destined at no very distant day to voluntarily annex 
herself to the United States, to participate in the 



214 



LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 



enormous advantage sure to accrue to her by such 

union. Then the entire northern continent is ours. 

While our war was progressing, Napoleon III of 

France, conceived the idea of establishing an empire 

in Mexico. ^ __^ 

An Austrian s^ i^\ 

archduke, / \ x 

Maximilian, / 

had been en- 
throned with 
French sol- 
diers to sup- 
port his occu- 
pation. This 
was an in- 
vasion of 
our "Monroe 
Doctrine" 
principle ; 
but we could 
take but lit- 
tle notice of 
what was go- 
ing on out- 
side our own 
Union. At 
the end of 
i 865 a pro- 
test was made. Napoleon withdrew his troops dur- 
ing 1866. Juarez, the President of the Republic 
of Mexico, compelled Maximilian to surrender, May 
15, 1867; he was condemned by a council of war, 
aud shot on June 19, 1867; and this ended the short- 




SEV'MOUR AND BLAIR. 



A NDRE U 7 JOHNSON. 2 x 5 

lived Mexican Empire. The fact that Napoleon 
withdrew his troops at the bidding of President 
Johnson, and that the empire thereupon tumbled 
into ruins, was certainly a great triumph of Ameri- 
can policy. 

The Republican Convention nominated with una- 
nimity, General Ulysses S. Grant, of Illinois, for 
President, and Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana, for 
Vice-President. The Democratic Convention met 
in New York City, July 4. Governor Horatio Sey- 
mour, of New York, was nominated for President on 
the 2 2d ballot, and Francis P. Blair, Jr., of Missouri, 
for Vice-President. 

Grant carried all of the States save eight, receiving 
an electoral vote of 214 against 80. 



ULYSSES S. GRANT— 1 869-1 877. 

Ulysses Simpson Grant, the eighteenth Presi- 
dent, was descended from Scotch ancestors, and born 
in Ohio, December 27, 1822, and was the youngest 
elected President. His parents were natives of Penn- 
sylvania. Having acquired the rudiments of educa- 
tion at a common school, and having a taste for 
military life, he was sent to West Point in 1839. 
He was a diligent student, but not bright and grad- 
uated in 1843, standing twenty-first in a class of 
thirty-nine. He was made a brevet-lieutenant of 
infantry, and attached to the Fourth Regiment, his 
regiment being ordered to Texas, to join the army 
of General Taylor. Our young lieutenant fought his 
first battle at Palo Alto. He was also in the battles 



2i6 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

at Resaca, Monterey, and at the siege of Vera Cruz. 
At Molina del Rey, he was appointed on the field a 
first lieutenant for his gallantry; and for his conduct 
at Chapultepec he was breveted a captain. In 1854 
he resigned, and attempted various kinds of business 
without success. In 1848 he married. On the first 
call for troops to suppress the Rebellion, he marched 
in command of a company of volunteers to Spring- 
field. He was appointed a colonel in June, and be- 
came a brigadier-general in August, 1861. He rose 
to Ivieutenant-General in March, 1864, when he had 
command of all the armies of the Republic, which 
then numbered nearly 750,000 men. In this new 
position his unrivalled generalship was fully dis- 
played. Having brought the war to an end, he was 
promoted to the rank of General — specially created 
— and took his proper station by the side of the great 
" Captains of the World." He was triumphantly 
elected to the Presidency in 1868; inaugurated 
March 4, 1869; and re-elected four years later. 

His first battle in the Rebellion was fought at 
Belmont, Missouri, on November 7, 1861. Both sides 
claimed the victory. In February, 1862, he took 
Fort Henry, and a week later Fort Donelson, which 
was garrisoned with 20,000 men. It was here that 
he used his celebrated sentence, "No terms other 
than unconditional, immediate surrender can be ac- 
cepted. I propose to move immediately upon your 
works." The fort surrendered, and Grant was at 
once made a Major-General. He was now styled 
" Unconditional Surrender Grant." On July 4, 
1863, Vicksburg was captured, causing great exulta- 
tion among the .friends of the Union. He was 



ULYSSES S. GRANT. 



217 



rewarded for this service by promotion to the rank 
of Major-General in the Regular Army. Captain 




ULYSSES S. GRANT. 



Porter and the gunboats co-operated in this capture. 
Up to this time Grant had taken 90,000 prisoners; 



2i8 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

while disaster seemed to follow all the commanders 
operating against Richmond. On March 12, 1864, 
he was appointed commander of all the armies. He 
himself directed the army in Virginia, battling with 
Robert E. Lee; and sent William T. Sherman to 
oppose the other Confederate army operating in 
Georgia, and commanded by Joseph E. Johnston. 
Philip H. Sheridan commanded all of the cavalry 
in Grant's Army of the Potomac. Lee and Johnston 
were trained West Point soldiers; able, alert, and 
indefatigable. On May 5, 1864, Grant's army met 
the enemy in the great but indecisive battle of the 
Wilderness. On June 3, he attacked the enemy's 
works at Cold Harbor, but was repulsed with heavy 
loss. He remained nearly inactive before Peters- 
burg during the winter of 1 864-1865; but Sherman 
continued moving up from Georgia to Virginia. It 
had now got to be, as was expressed by the Demo- 
cratic press, " a mere question of bloody arithmetic." 
Lee was surrounded; his army were starving; it was 
criminal to pursue the contest any longer. Richmond 
was evacuated April 2, and on the ninth of April, 
1865, Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House, 
Virginia ; after which the insurgents everywhere 
gave up the contest. On his election to the Presi- 
dency he resigned his supreme rank to General 
Sherman. 

The war debt at the end of 1865 was three billions 
of dollars — to say nothing of the frightful loss of 
life. Such was the enormous cost which the slave- 
holders' rebellion imposed upon the land; but the 
end has been attained, and the people had sufficient 
confidence in the elasticity of our resources to bear 



ULYSSES S. GRANT. 



219 



with cheerfulness this burden, which a few years had 
accumulated, on their shoulders. 

Grant was inaugurated, and the Congressional 
plan of reconstruction was rapidly pushed, with at 
first very little opposition save that manifested by 
the Democrats in Congress. The conditions of re- 
admission were the ratification of the thirteenth and 
fourteenth constitutional amendments. 

On February 25, 1869, the fifteenth amendment 
was added to the list by its adoption in Congress and 
submission to the States. It conferred the right of 
suffrage on all citizens, without distinction of " race, 
color or previous condition of servitude." By March 
30, 1870, it was ratified by twenty-nine States, the 
required three-fourths of all in the Union. The issue 
was shrewdly handled, and in most instances met 
Legislatures ready to receive it. Many of the South- 
ern States were specially interested in its passage, 
since a denial of suffrage would abridge their repre- 
sentation in Congress. This was, of course, true of 
all the States ; but its force was indisputable in sec- 
tions containing large colored populations. 

The 41st Congress met December 4, 1869, and 
before its close Virginia, Georgia, Texas and Missis- 
sippi had all complied with the conditions of recon- 
struction, and were re-admitted to the Union. This 
practically completed the work of reconstruction. 

Congress met December 5, 1870. Grant's Mes- 
sage discussed a new question, and advocated the 
annexation of San Domingo to the United States. 
A treaty had been negotiated between President 
Grant and the President of the Republic of San 



220 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

Domingo, September 4, 1869, but it was rejected by 
the Senate. The question had no political signifi- 
cance. No territory could be annexed without a 
treaty, and this must be ratified by two-thirds of 
the Senate ; and as this could not be commanded, 
the project was dropped. It has not since attracted 
any attention. 

The long-disputed Alabama Claims of the United 
States against Great Britain, arising from the depre- 
dations of the Anglo-rebel privateers, built and fitted 
out and manned in British waters, were referred by 
the Treaty of Washington, dated May 8, 1871, to 
arbitrators, and this was the first and most signal 
triumph of the plan of arbitration, so far as the 
United States was concerned. The arbitrators were 
appointed, at the invitation of the Governments of 
Great Britain and the United States, from these 
powers, and from Brazil, Italy, and Switzerland. 
On September 14, 1872, they gave to the United 
States gross damages to the amount of $15,500,000. 

The Civil Service Reform Bill was passed at this 
session. When first proposed, partisan politics had 
no part or place in civil service reform, and the 
author of the plan was himself a distinguished Re- 
publican. In fact, both parties thought something 
good had been reached, and there was practically no 
resistance at first to a trial. 

Efforts were made to pass bills to remove the po- 
litical disabilities of former Southern rebels. All 
such efforts were defeated by the Republicans. The 
Amnesty Bill, however, was passed May 22, 1872, 
after an agreement to exclude from its provisions all 
who held the higher military and civic positions 



ULYSSES S. GRANT. 221 

under the Confederacy — in all about 350 persons. 

Subsequently acts removing the disabilities of all 

save Jefferson Davis were passed. 

An issue raised in Missouri gave rise to the Liberal 

Republican party. In 1870 the Republican party, 

then in control of the Legislature of Missouri, split 

into two parts on the question of the removal of the 

disqualifications imposed upon rebels by the State 

Constitution during the war. Those favoring the 

... 
removal of disabilities were headed by B. Gratz 

Brown and Carl Schurz, and they called themselves 
Liberal Republicans; those opposed were called and 
accepted the name of Radical Republicans. The 
former quickly allied themselves with the Demo- 
crats, and thus carried the State, though Grant's 
administration backed the Radicals with all the 
power of the Government. As a result the disabilities 
were removed, and the Liberals sought to promote 
a reaction in Republican sentiment all over the 
country. Greeley was the recognized head of this 
movement, and he was ably aided by leading Re- 
publicans in nearly all of the States, who at once 
began to lay plans to carry the next Presidential 
election. 

They charged that the Enforcement Acts of Con- 
gress were designed more for the political advance- 
ment of Grant's adherents than for the benefit of the 
country; that instead of suppressing they were cal- 
culated to promote a war of races in the South; that 
Grant was seeking the establishment of a military 
despotism, etc. These leaders were all brilliant men. 

In the spring of 1871 the Liberal Republicans 
and Democrats of Ohio prepared for a fusion, and 



222 



LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 



after frequent consultations of the various leaders 
with Mr. Greeley, a call was issued from Missouri 
on January 24, 1872, for a Convention of the Liberal 




/ / / 

HORACE GREELEY. 



Republican party to be held at Cincinnati, May I. 
The well-matured plans of the leaders were carried 
out in the nomination of Horace Greeley, of New 



ULYSSES S. GRANT. > » • 

York, the editor of the New York Tribune, for Presi- 
dent, and B. Gratz Brown, of Missouri, for Vice- 
President, though not without a serious struggle 
over the chief nomination, which was warmly con- 
tested by the friends of Charles Francis Adams. 

The original leaders now prepared to capture the 
Democratic Convention. By nearly a unanimous 
vote it was induced to endorse the Cincinnati platform, 
and it likewise finally endorsed Greeley and Brown 
— though not without many bitter protests. A few 
straight-out Democrats met later and nominated 
Charles O'Conor, of New York, for President, and 
John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts, for Vice- 
President, and these were kept in the race to the 
end, receiving a popular vote of about 30,000. 

The regular Republican Convention renominated 
President Grant unanimously, and Henry Wilson, 
of Massachusetts, for Vice-President. This change 
to Wilson was to favor the solid Republican States 
of New England, and to prevent both candidates 
coming from the West. 

Grant and Wilson received nearly 3,600,000 popu- 
lar votes, while Greeley and Brown polled 2,835,000 
votes. Grant and Wilson receiving 286 electoral 
votes to 47 only for Greeley and Brown, they were 
declared elected and duly inaugurated, March 4, 
1873. Horace Greeley died soon afterwards in an 
insane asylum. The Tribune, the national organ of 
the Republicans for 30 years, lost caste, and this, 
and the defeat for the Presidency, unbalanced poor 
Greeley's mind. 

By 1874 the Democrats of the South, who then 
generally classed themselves as Conservatives, had 



224 



LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 



gained control of all the State Governments except 
those of Louisiana, Florida and South Carolina. In 
nearly all, the Republican Goverments had called 
upon President Grant for military aid in maintaining 
their positions, but this was declined except in the 




CHARUSS O CONOR. 

presence of such outbreaks as the proper State au- 
thorities could not suppress. In Arkansas, Alabama, 
Mississippi, and Texas, Grant declined to interfere. 
The cry came from the Democratic partisans in the 
South for home-rule ; another came from the negroes 



ULYSSES S GRANT. 



225 



that they were constantly disfranchised, intimidated 
and assaulted by the White League, a body of men 
organized in the Gulf States for the purpose of break- 
ing up the " carpet-bag government." 




PETER COOPER. 



On July I, 1876, the Centennial of the Declaration 
of Independence was greeted with rejoicing in every 
town and city in the land. On May 10, the Cen- 
tennial Exposition, in Philadelphia, was opened by 
General Grant. For six years preparations had been 



226 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

making to have an exhibition designed to show the 
nation's progress during its first century of existence. 
All the world was invited to contribute examples of 
their products and industries. It was the largest 
display of the kind made up to that time, the cov- 
ered space being over 60 acres, and the cost of the 
buildings was over $6,000,000. It was open for six 
months; and great crowds gathered from all over 
the world to examine the myriads of objects ex- 
hibited. There were 30,000 exhibitors; 33 foreign 
countries were represented; over 10,000,000 visitors 
gathered there; and the admission receipts ran up 
to $4,000,000. 

Colorado was admitted as the 38th State on 
August 1, 1776. 

Our original 13 States, with their population of 
4,000,000, had grown to 38 States with nearly 
60,000,000 people, and wealth, comfort and educa- 
tion and art flourished in still larger proportion. 

The people had grown tired of Credit Mobilier, 
Whiskey Ring, Indian Tradership, Salary Grab, and 
other scandals; and some sort of a change was im- 
peratively demanded. As a consequence the 44th 
Congress, which met in December, 1875, na( ^ been 
changed by what was called " the tidal wave," from 
Republican to Democratic, and Michael C. Kerr, of 
Indiana, was elected Speaker. The Senate re- 
mained Republican, but with a reduced margin. 

The troubles in the South, and the almost general 
overthrow of the "carpet-bag government," im- 
pressed all with the fact that the Presidential elec- 
tion of 1876 would be exceedingly close and excit- 
ine, and the result confirmed this belief. The 



ULYSSES S. GRANT. 227 

Greenbackers were the first to meet and Peter 
Cooper, of New York, was nominated for President, 
and Samuel F. Cary, of Ohio, for Vice-President. 

The Republicans met, with James G. Blaine recog- 
nized as the leading candidate. Grant had been 
named for a third term, and there was a belief that 
his name would be presented. Such was the feel- 
ing on this question that the Houses of Congress and 
a Republican State Convention in Pennsylvania 
had passed resolutions declaring that a third term 
for President would be a violation of the " unwritten 
law" handed down through the examples from 
Washington to Jackson. His name, however, was 
not then presented. The "unit rule" at this con- 
vention was for the first time resisted, and by the 
friends of Blaine, with a view to release from in- 
structions of State Conventions some of his friends. 
New York had instructed for Conkling and Pennsyl- 
vania for Hartranft. The chairman decided against 
the binding force of the unit rule, and to assert the 
liberty of each delegate to vote as he pleased. The 
Convention sustained the decision on an appeal. 

The balloting is here appended. 



1st Ballot. 


2d. 


3d. 


4th. 


5th. 


6th. 


7 th. 


Blaine 285 


296 


292 


293 


287 


308 


35i 


Conkling . . 113 


114 


121 


126 


114 


in 


21 


Bristow .... 99 


93 


90 


84 


82 


81 




Morton .... 124 


120 


"3 


108 


95 


85 




Hartranft . . 58 


63 


68 


7i 


69 


50 




Hayes 61 


64 


67 


68 


102 


113 


384 



Rutherford B. Hayes, of Ohio, was nominated for 
President, and Win, A, Wheeler, of New York, for 
Vice-President, 



228 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

The Democrats met at St. Louis. Both the 
unit and the two-thirds rule were observed in this 
body. On the second ballot, Samuel J. Tilden, of 
New York, had 535 votes to 203 for all others. His 
leading competitor was Thomas A. Hendricks, of 
Indiana, who was nominated for Vice-President. 

In the election that followed, Hayes and Wheeler 
carried all the Northern States except Connecticut, 
New York, New Jersey and Indiana ; Tilden and 
Hendricks carried all of the Southern States except 
South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana. The three 
last-named States were claimed by the Democrats, 
but the members of the Congressional Investigating 
Committee quieted rival claims as to South Carolina 
by agreeing that it had fairly chosen the Republican 
electors. So close was the result that success or 
failure hinged upon the returns of Florida and 
Louisiana, and for days and weeks conflicting stories 
and claims came from these States. The Demo- 
crats claimed that they had won on the face of the 
returns from Louisiana, and that there was no 
authority to go behind these. 

Congress met December 5, 1876, and while by that 
time all knew the dangers of the approaching elec- 
toral count, yet neither House would consent to the 
revision of the joint rule regulating the count. The 
Republicans claimed that the President of the Senate 
had the sole authority to open and announce the re- 
turns in the presence of the two Houses; the Demo- 
crats plainly disputed this right, and claimed that the 
joint body could control the count under the law. 

There was grave danger, and it was asserted that 
the Democrats, fearing the President of the Senate 



UL YSSES S. GRANT. 



229 



would exercise the power of declaring the result, 
were preparing first to forcibly and at last with 
secrecy swear in and inaugurate Tilden. 

President 
Grant and ^ -"' ' \ 

Secretary of 
War Came- / 

ron thought 
the condition 
of affairs crit- 
ical, and both / 
made active / 
though se I 
cret pre para- / 
tions to se- ( 
cure the safe | 
if not the i 
peaceful in- \ 




an gu ration 1 
of Hayes. I 
Grant, in one 
of his senten- 
tious utter- 
ances, said 
he "would 
have peace if 
he had to 
fight for it." 
M embers of 

Congress representing both of the great political 
parties substantially agreed upon an Electoral Com- 
mission Act. The leaders on the part of the Re 
publicans in these conferences were Colliding, Ed 



SAMUEI, J. TILDEN. 



230 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

munds, Frelinghuysen; on the part of the Demo- 
crats, Bayard, Gordon, Randall and Hewitt, the 
latter a member of the House and Chairman of the 
Democratic Committee. 

The Electoral Commission, composed of 8 Repub- 
licans and 7 Democrats, met February 1, 1877, and 
by uniform votes of 8 to 7 decided all objections to 
the electoral vote of Florida, Louisiana, South Car- 
olina, and Oregon, in favor of the Republicans; and 
while the two Houses disagreed on nearly all of these 
points by strict party votes, the electoral votes were, 
under the provisions of the law, given to Hayes and 
Wheeler, and the final result declared to be 185 elec- 
tors for Hayes and Wheeler, to 184 for Tilden and 
Hendricks. The uniform vote of 8 to 7 on all impor- 
tant propositions considered by the Electoral Com- 
mission, to their minds showed a partisan spirit, the 
existence of which it was difficult to deny. The 
action of the Republican "visiting statesmen" in 
Louisiana, in practically overthrowing the Packard 
or Republican government there, caused distrust and 
dissatisfaction in the minds of the more radical Re- 
publicans, who contended with every show of reason 
that if Hayes carried Louisiana, Packard, the Re- 
publican nominee for governor, must also have done 
so. The only sensible excuse for seating Hayes on 
the one side and throwing out Governor Packard on 
the other, was a desire for peace in the settlement 
of both Presidential and Southern State issues. 
There was hardly any question but that Tilden was 
elected; but he lacked the nerve and force of char- 
acter to assert his rights. He u dreaded civil war." 
In the formation of the Electoral Commission, the 



ULYSSES S. GRANT. 2 ^ z 

Democrats were out-generaled and everywhere out- 
manceuvered by their keener opponents. The bank- 
ing and commercial class did not want any change 
of administration that might change the existing 
order of things, financially or industrially, and so 
there was an indifferent sort of acquiescence in the 
accepted political arrangements. 

The question of the title of President was finally 
settled June 14, 1878, by the House Judiciary Com- 
mittee, under the following resolution : 

Resolved, That the two Houses of the 44th Con- 
gress having counted the votes cast for President 
and Vice-President of the United States, and having 
declared Rutherford B. Hayes to be elected Presi- 
dent, and William A. Wheeler to be elected Vice- 
President, there is no power in any subsequent 
Congress to reverse that declaration, nor can any 
such power be exercised by the courts of the United 
States, or any other tribunal that Congress can cre- 
ate under the Constitution. 

After retiring from his eight years' Presidency, 
Grant went or a voyage around the world. He was 
everywhere received with marked cordiality and 
treated as a potentate. The military governments 
of Europe flocked to see the victorious general 
who had put down the great rebellion. The junket- 
ing round the world kept him favorably before the 
public, and kept him out of the way of any political 
entanglements until the time should come round 
again for the nomination of Presidential candidates in 
1880, when it was the avowed intention of his friends 
to spring his name again on the convention. This 
was popularity called a u third term," though not a 



232 



LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 



third consecutive term. His three powerful senatorial 
friends, in the face of bitter protests, had secured the 
instructions of their respective State conventions for 
Grant. Conkling had done this in New York, Cam- 
eron in Pennsylvania, Logan in Illinois ; but in each 
of the three States the opposition was so impressive 
that no serious attempts were made to substitute other 
delegates for those which had previously been selected 
by their Congressional districts. As a result there was 
a large minority in the delegations of the States op- 
posed to the nomination of Grant, solely on the 
"third term" issue, and their votes could only be 
controlled by the enforcement of the unit rule. Sena- 
tor Hoar, of Massachusetts, the President of the 
Convention (as did his predecessors in the Hayes 
Convention), decided against its enforcement, and as 
a result all the delegates were free to vote upon either 
State or district instructions, or as they chose. The 
convention was in session three days. 

Grant, to his credit be it said, wrote a letter to 
Cameron refusing to allow his name to come before 
the convention for a third term. This letter was 
ruthlessly suppressed by Conkling. The fact that 
such a letter had been written was not made public 
till the fall of 1895 ; and the good name of Grant 
suffered greatly in consequence. 

Grant started in the ballotings with 304 votes, 
which rose to 306, where it stayed for 36 ballots ; 
378 votes were necessary for a choice. Blaine re- 
ceived 284, and they stuck to him with the same 
persistency throughout. Sherman and Blaine, to 
defeat Grant, threw their delegations to James A. 
Garfield who received 399 votes on the 36th ballot, 



RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. 



Z33 



and was declared the nominee. [For particulars of 
the balloting, see under Hayes.] 

Grant engaged with his son in the banking busi- 
ness in New York City, under the name of Grant & 
Ward. The business turned out disastrously. In 
1885, after his bankruptcy, he undertook the com- 
pilation of his "Memoirs," and completed the work 
only four days before his death. The sale of the 
book was something unprecedented, and brought to 
his widow in royalties over half a million dollars. 

His last home was in New York. He fell sick in 
1884, and after a painful eight months' lingering, 
with cancer in the throat, he died at Mount Mc- 
Gregor, near Saratoga, July 23, 1885, and was buried 
with great pomp, August 8, 1885, at Riverside Park 
(on the Hudson), New York City. 



RUTHERFORD B. HAYES— 1877-1881. 

Rutherford Birchard Hayes, the nineteenth 
President, was born in Ohio, Oct. 4, 1822. He grad- 
uated in Kenyon College, Ohio, in 1842, and having 
studied law at Harvard College, in Massachusetts, 
moved to Cincinnati, where he practised from 1849 
to 1861. He served with distinction in the Civil 
War as an officer of volunteers, being once severely 
wounded, and he rose to the rank of brevet-major- 
general. He was sent to Congress in 1865 ; was 
elected Governor in 1867, being re-elected in 1869, 
and again in 1875. In 1876 he was nominated by 



234 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

the Republicans fur the Presidency; was declared 
elected by the Electoral Commission, and was inau- 
gurated March 4, 1877. 

William M. Evarts of New York, the ablest man 
in the State, was appointed Secretary of State; and 
John Sherman of Ohio, was given the Treasury De- 
partment. 

From the very beginning the administration of 
Hayes had not the cordial support ol the party, nor 
was it solidly opposed by the Democrats, as was the 
last administration of Grant. His early withdrawal 
of the troops from the Southern States — and it was 
this withdrawal and the suggestion of it from the 
u visiting statesmen" which overthrew the Packard 
government in Louisiana — embittered the hostility 
of many radical Republicans. Senator Conkling, who 
always disliked the President, was conspicuous in 
his opposition, as was Logan of Illinois, and Cam- 
eron of Pennsylvania. It was because of his con- 
servative tendencies, that these three leaders formed 
the purpose to bring Grant again to the Presidency. 
Yet the Hayes Administration was not always con- 
servative, and many believed that its moderation 
had afforded a much-needed breathing spell to the 
country. Towards its close all became better sat- 
isfied, the radical portion by the President's later 
efforts to prevent the intimidation of negro voters 
in the South — a form of intimidation which was 
now accomplished by means of rifle clubs, still 
another advance from the White League and the 
Ku-Klux. He made this a leading feature in his 
Message to the Congress in 1878, and by an aban- 
donment of his earlier policy he succeeded in re- 



RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. 



^35 



uniting what were then fast-separating wings of his 
own party. . 

In his last annual Message, in December, 1880, in 




RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. 



the course of a lengthy discussion of the civil ser- 
vice, the President declared that, in his opinion 
" every citizen has an equal right to the honor and 
profit of entering the public service of his country. 



236 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

The only just ground of discrimination is the meas- 
ure of character and capacity he has to make that 
service most useful to the people. Except in cases 
where, upon jnst and recognized principles, as upon 
the theory of pensions, offices and promotions are 
bestowed as rewards for past services, their bestowal 
upon any theory which disregards personal merit is 
an act of injustice to the citizen, as well as a breach 
of that trust subject to which the appointing power 
is held." 

In pursuance of his reform of the Civil Service, 
he removed Chester A. Arthur (afterwards Vice- 
President and President), from his office of Collector 
at New York City. This is the most valued office 
under the administration, and Arthur was the par- 
ticular friend of Senator Conkling, and a firm be- 
liever in, and upholder of, the old political adage 
that u to the victor belongs the spoils." 

The effect of his administration was, in a political 
sense, to strengthen a growing independent sentiment 
in the ranks of the Republicans — an element more 
conservative generally in its views than those repre- 
sented by Conkling and Blaine. This sentiment 
began with Bristow, who while in the Cabinet made 
a show of seeking out and punishing all corruptions 
in Government office or service. On this platform 
and record he had contested with Hayes the honors 
of the Presidential nominations, and while the latter 
was at the time believed to well represent the same 
views, they were not urgently pressed during his 
administration. Indeed, without the knowledge of 
Hayes, what was said to be a most gigantic "steal," 
under the name of the Star Route bills, had its 



RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. 237 

birth, and thrived so well that no important discov- 
ery was made until the incoming of the Garfield 
Administration. The Hayes Administration, it is 
now fashionable to say, made little impress for good 
or evil upon the country, but impartial historians 
will give it the credit of softening party asperities 
and aiding very materially in the restoration of better 
feeling between the North and South. Its conser- 
vatism, always manifested save on extraordinary 
occasions, did that much good at least. He was 
active in pressing forward the resumption of specie 
payments. 

He died on January 17, 1893, and was buried at 
Columbus, Ohio. 

The Republicans met, June 5, 1880, at Chicago. 
The excitement in the ranks of the Republicans 
was very high, because of the candidacy of Grant 
for what was popularly called a "third term," 
though not a third consecutive term. His friends, 
in the face of bitter protests, had secured the in- 
structions of their respective State Conventions for 
Grant. Conkling had done this in New York, Cam- 
eron in Pennsylvania, Logan in Illinois. Still there 
was a large minority in the delegations of these 
States opposed to his nomination. The convention 
was in session three days. The following was the 
vote on the first ballot: Grant, 304; Blaine, 284; 
Sherman, 93; Edmunds, 34; Washburne, 30; Win- 
dom, 10. On the second ballot, Garfield and Har- 
rison each received one vote. The vote remained 
about the same for three days, when it got to be 
"anything to beat Grant.'' 

The prejudice against a third term is unyielding. 



2 3 8 



LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 



It is more than sentiment. It is wisdom. Experi- 
ence has burned this precaution in the public mind. 
Great power must frequently be recalled by the peo- 
ple and transferred to new hands. And so Grant 
was called down. 

James A. Garfield, of Ohio, was nominated on the 
36th ballot, Grant's forces alone remaining solid. 
After Garfield's nomination there was a temporary 
adjournment, during which the friends of the nom- 
inee consulted Coukling and his leading friends, and 
the result was the selection of Chester A. Arthur of 
New York for Vice-President. The object of this 
selection was to carry New York, the great State 
which was then believed to hold the key to the Presi- 
dential position. 

The Democrats met at Cincinnati, June 22, 1880. 
Tilden had, up to the holding of the Pennsylvania 
State Convention, been the most promising candi- 
date. There was a struggle between the Wallace and 
Randall factions of Pennsylvania, the former favor- 
ing Hancock, the latter Tilden. Wallace won, and 
bound the delegation by the unit rule. When the 
convention met, John Kelly, the Tammany leader of 
New York, was again there, as at St. Louis, four 
years before, to oppose Tilden, but the latter sent a 
letter disclaiming that he was a candidate, and yet 
really inviting a nomination on the issue of " the 
fraudulent counting in of Hayes." There were but 
two ballots. On the first ballot, the " favorite sons " 
of the several States received the customary com- 
plimentary vote. On the first ballot Hancock re- 
ceived 171 votes; Bayard, 153^; and Tilden, 38. 



RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. 239 

On the second ballot Hancock received 705, Tilden 
1, Hendricks 30. 

Thus General Winfield Scott Hancock, of New 
York, was nominated on the second ballot. William 
H. English, of Indiana, was nominated for Vice- 
President. 

The Greenback -Labor Convention nominated Gen- 
eral J. B. Weaver, of Iowa, for President ; and 
General E. J. Chambers, of Texas, for Vice-President. 
In the canvass which followed, the Republican 
orators visited the October States of Ohio and In- 
diana, as it was believed that these would determine 
the result, Maine having in September very unex- 
pectedly defeated the Republican State ticket by a 
small majority. Conkling held aloof at first. It was 
believed that Hancock's splendid military record 
would carry him through, and it was absolutely 
necessary to do something to offset this popularity. 
Great influences were brought to bear on Conkling 
for assistance. With Grant, he swung around the 
circle of States, making a "business " campaign of 
it ; predicting all manner of direful things if a change 
were made in the administration of affairs. The 
" business " vote settled it. Garfield was elected. _ 

General Hancock made the great blunder of saying 
that the " tariff was a purely local issue." This 
sentence cost him Pennsylvania. 

Every issue was recalled, but for the first time in the 
history of the Republicans of the West, they accepted 
the tariff issue, and made open war on the plank in 
the Democratic platform— " a tariff for revenue 
only." Iowa, Ohio, and Indiana all elected the 



240 



LIVES OF THE rRESIDENTS. 



Republican State tickets with good margins; West 
Virginia went Democratic, but the result was, not- 
withstanding this, reasonably assured to the Repub- 




GKNERAI, W. S. HANCOCK. 



licans. The Democrats, however, feeling the strong 
personal popularity of their leading candidate, per- 
sisted with high courage to the end. In November 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 241 

all of the Southern States, with New Jersey, Cali- 
fornia, and Nevada in the North, went Democratic; 
all of the others, Republican. The Greenbackers 
held only a balance of power, which they could 
not exercise, in California, Indiana, and New Jersey. 
The electoral vote of Garfield and Arthur was 214; 
that of Hancock and English, 155. The popular 
vote was: Republican, 4,442,950; Democratic, 4,442,- 
035; Greenback or National, 306,867; scattering, 
12,576. The Congressional elections in the same 
canvass gave- the Republicans 147 members, the 
Democrats, 136; Greenbackers, 9; Independents, 1. 



JAMES A. GARFIEED— 1881 (200 days). 

James Abram Garfield, the twentieth Presi- 
dent, was born in Ohio, November 19, 1831, of 
Puritan ancestors. His father died soon after the 
birth of James, leaving a widow and four small 
children in poor circumstances. He knew what 
deprivation and poverty meant. When he was ten 
years old he did such work as he could on the neigh- 
boring farms, chopping wood, and driving horses on 
the tow-path of a canal, and drudging generally; 
and spent his winters at the district school. In 1849 
he joined the Campbellites, a religious offshoot from 
the Baptists. He went through Hiram College, 
in Ohio, supporting himself by teaching, and gradu- 
ated at Williams College, in Massachusetts, in 1856. 

Returning to Hiram College, which was a Camp- 
bellite institution, he became its president, and there 



242 



LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 



began studying law. He was elected to the State 
Senate in 1859; and when the war began he was 




JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD. 



placed in command of a regiment of volunteers. 
In 1862 he was made a brigadier-general, and was 
promoted to be a major-general for gallantry at 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 243 

Chickamauga. He shortly after resigned his com- 
mand to enter Congress. He remained in Congress 
till 1880, where he rendered valuable service on mil- 
itary and financial questions. In January, 1880, he 
was elected to the United States Senate; and in 
June of the same year he was nominated for the 
Presidency on the Republican ticket. His nomina- 
tion was a surprise, and the result of a fusion of the 
friends of Sherman and Blaine to defeat Grant. He 
delivered speeches in his own behalf during the 
campaign (an unprecedented performance up to this 
time), and defeated General Hancock, his Democratic 
opponent, by a very narrow majority on the popular 
vote, but by 214 to 155 on the electoral vote. James 
B. Weaver, the Greenbacker and Labor candidate, 
polled 307,306 votes; and there were over 10,000 
votes cast for the Prohibition ticket. 

James A. Garfield was inaugurated President on 
March. 4, 1881. His address promised full and equal 
protection of the Constitution and the laws for the 
negro, advocated universal education as a safeguard 
of suffrage, and recommended such an adjustment 
of our monetary system " that the purchasing power 
of every coined dollar will be exactly equal to its 
debt-paying power in all the markets of the world." 
The national debt should be refunded at a lower 
rate of interest, without compelling the withdrawal 
of the National Bank notes; polygamy should be 
prohibited, and civil service regulated by law. 

James G. Blaine was made Secretary of State; 
William Windom, of Minnesota, Secretary of the 
Treasury; and Robert T. Lincoln, of Illinois, a son 
of the martyred President), Secretary of War. 



244 



LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 



The parties were even in this session of the Senate 
and Vice-President Arthur had to employ the cast- 
ing vote on all questions where the parties divided ; 
he invariably cast it on the side of the Republicans. 

The President nominated William H. Robertson, 
the leader of the Blaine wing of the party in New 
York, to be Collector of Customs. Conkling un- 
successfully fought this nomination with all his 
power and influence, but Robertson was eventually 
confirmed. 

These events widely separated the factions in New 
York — one wing calling itself " Stalwart," the other 
" Half-Breed," a term of contempt flung at the Inde- 
pendents by Conkling. Conkling and his associate, 
Thomas C. Piatt, resigned from the Senate. Elections 
followed to fill the vacancies, the New York Legisla- 
ture being in session. It was confidently assumed 
that both Conkling and Piatt would be immediately 
returned. This would give Conkling the endorse- 
ment of his State in his opposition to the adminis- 
tration. Vice-President Arthur worked indefatigably 
but unavailingly in his effort to bring Conkling's re- 
nomination around. These vacancies gave the Demo- 
crats for the time control of the U. S. Senate, but 
they thought it unwise to pursue an advantage which 
would compel them to show their hands for or against 
one or other of the opposing Republican factions. 
Warner A. Miller became Piatt's successor, and El- 
bridge G. L,apham was elected to fill Conkling's place. 

On the morning of Saturday, July 2, 1881, Gar- 
field accompanied by Blaine, left the Executive 
Mansion to take a train for New England, where he 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 245 

intended to visit the college from which he had 
graduated. He was walking through the main 
waiting-room, when Charles J. Guiteau, a persistent 
and disappointed office-seeker, entered through the 
main door, and fired two shots, one of which took 
fatal effect. The bullet striking the President about 
four inches to the right of the spinal column, struck 
the tenth and badly shattered the eleventh rib. The 
shock to the President's system was very severe, 
and at first apprehensions were felt that death would 
ensue speedily. Two hours after the shooting he was 
removed to the Executive Mansion and from thence 
to Ivong Branch, where, in a cottage at Elberon, it 
was hoped vigor would return. At first, indications 
justified the most sanguine expectations, but he died 
at 10.35 on the night of September 19, 1 881, and our 
nation mourned, as it had only done once before, 
when Abraham Lincoln also fell by the hand of an 
assassin. Guiteau was tried, convicted, and hung, 
the jury rejecting his plea of insanity. 

Once again was the country draped in mourning as 
the body of the second assassinated President passed 
through the land to its final resting-place in Cleveland. 

At midnight on September 19, the Cabinet tele- 
graphed to Vice-President Arthur to take the oath 
of office, and this he very properly did before a local 
judge. He was soon afterwards again sworn in at 
Washington, with the usual ceremonies. He re- 
quested the Cabinet to hold on until Congress met, and 
it would have remained intact had Secretary Windom 
not found it necessary to resume his place in the 
Senate. 



246 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

CHESTER A. ARTHUR— 1881-1885. 

Chester Alan Arthur, who became our twenty- 
first President, on the assassination of James A. 
Garfield, was born in Vermont, October 5, 1830. 
His father was a Baptist minister and a native of the 
North of Ireland. He distinguished himself as a 
student at Union College, New York, and devoting 
himself to law studies, was admitted to the bar in 
1853. At the beginning of the Civil War he held 
the post of inspector-general, and during the war he 
was quarter-master-general for the New York forces. 
He took a prominent share in politics on the Repub- 
lican side, and in 187 1, General Grant appointed 
him Collector of Customs at the port of New York, 
a very much coveted post. As being hostile to the 
reform in the civil service aimed at by President 
Hayes, he was removed from this post in 1878. He 
was the leader of the Republican party in New York 
State, and though belonging to the section of the 
party opposed to civil service reform to that repre- 
sented by Garfield he was made the Vice-President 
when Garfield became President in 1881. Garfield's 
death called him to the supreme magistracy of the 
Union. He was provisionally inaugurated at mid- 
night on September 19, 1881, on notice of Garfield's 
death. He was formally sworn into the office later 
at Washington with the customary ceremonies. 

One of his law cases that first brought him into 
notoriety in New York City was the winning of a 
suit in 1856, giving blacks the right to ride on the 
horse cars. Some of the cars at that time bore the 



CHESTER A. ARTHUR. 



247 



curious legend, " Colored people allowed to ride in 
these cars." 

He brought to his Cabinet as Secretary of State, 
T. F. Freylinghuysen, of New Jersey. For Secre- 
tary of the Treasury he appointed Charles J. Folger, 
of New York, and upon his death, soon after taking 
the office, it was conferred upon Walter Q. Gresham, 
of Illinois. He offered Senator Conkling a seat in 
the Supreme Court, but it was declined. He signed 
the anti-polygamy bill, March 23, 1882. 

In person Arthur was tall, large, well-propor- 
tioned, and of distinguished presence. His manners 
were affable. He was genial in domestic and social 
life, and warmly liked by his personal friends. 

General Arthur's was a quiet, clean, and business- 
like administration. He succeeded in checking the 
divisions in his party, and retired on March 4, 1885, 
with the good will of the entire country. In this 
respect he differed from all the preceding "acci- 
dental" Presidents, like Tyler, Fillmore, and John- 
son. He died suddenly of apoplexy in New York 
City, November 18, 1886, and was buried at Albany, 
New York. 

The Chinese Question was settled during this 
administration. Since 1877 there had been a con- 
stant agitation in California, and other States and 
Territories on the Pacific slope, for the prohibition 
of Chinese immigration, which they regarded in the 
light of an invasion. 

President Hayes vetoed the first bill interdicting 
such immigration on the ground that it was a "vio- 
lation of the spirit of treaty stipulations." 

On February 28, 1882, a new bill was offered in 



248 



LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 



the Senate prohibiting immigration to Chinese or 
Coolie laborers for a period of 20 years. Senator 
John F. Miller, who fathered the bill and who was 




CHESTER AI<AN ARTHUR. 



conversant with all the leading facts in the history 

of the agitation, in explaining this antipathy said: 

" It has been said that the advocates of Chinese 



CHESTER A. ARTHUR. 249 

restriction were to be found only among the vicious, 
unlettered foreign element of California society. To 
show the fact in respect of this contention, the 
Legislature of California in 1878 provided for a vote 
of the people upon the question of Chinese immi- 
gration (so called) to be had at the general election 
of 1879. The vote was legally taken, without ex- 
citement, and the response was general. When 
the ballots were counted, there were found to be 
883 votes for Chinese immigration and 154,638 
against it. A similar vote was taken in Nevada 
and resulted as follows: 183 votes for Chinese immi- 
gration and 17,259 votes against." 

Senator Jones, of Nevada, supported the bill and 
in resisting the fallacy that cheap labor produces 
national wealth called attention to the home condi- 
tion of the 350,000,000 Chinese. 

The bill passed the Senate by a 29 to 15 vote, and 
passed the House, March 23, 1882, by 167 favoring 
votes to 65 negative votes, and receiving the approval 
of Arthur became a law. 

In 1884, the Republican Convention met at 
Chicago. The candidates for nomination were: 
Chester A. Arthur, of New York ; James G. Blaine, 
of Maine; John Sherman, of Ohio; George F. Ed- 
munds, of Vermont; John A. Logan, of Illinois; 
and Joseph R. Hawley, of Connecticut. The con- 
vention sat for four days, and balloted as follows: 

1st Ballot. 2d. 3d. 4th. 

Blain e 334 349 375 54* 

Arthur 278 275 274 207 

Edmunds 93 85 96 41 

Logan 63 61 53 7 

Sherman 30 28 25 — 



250 



LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 



There were 820 votes. Blaine and Logan received 
the nominations for President and Vice-President. 
In this convention, President Arthur stood out 




JAMES G. BLAINE. 



for the nomination as his due, and as a vindication 
of the clean and dignified administration he had 
given the country after Garfield's death. Gresham, 



CHESTER A. ARTHUR. 



251 



who was Arthur's Secretary of the Treasury, was 
approached about his candidacy, but he insisted that 
under no circumstances would he allow his name to 
be used as long as Arthur desired the nomination. 
He was loyal to his chief, and did all that he could 
to promote his chances to succeed himself. But it 
was not to be. 

The Democrats also met in Chicago. Opposition 
was manifested to the unit rule. An effort was made 
to abolish the two-thirds rule, but this was met with 
such decided disfavor that it was abandoned. 

The prominent nominees were: Grover Cleveland, 
of New York; Thomas F. Bayard, of Delaware; 
Allen G. Thurman, of Ohio; and Samuel J. Randall, 
of Pennsylvania. There were only two ballots taken. 
On the first, Cleveland had 392 votes, Bayard, 168, 
Thurman 88, Randall 78, and there were about 90 
scattering votes. On the second ballot, Grover 
Cleveland received 684 votes (547 being necessary), 
and he was therefore declared the nominee for the 
Presidency. Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana, was 
given the nomination for Vice-President. 

The People's and Greenback ticket nominated 
Benjamin F. Butler, who polled 133,880 votes, thus 
aiding the Blaine ticket; but as an offset to this, the 
Prohibition ticket polled 150,633 votes, nearly all 
of which were pulled from the Republican nominees. 
Grover Cleveland was elected President, receiving 
219 electoral votes, while Blaine polled but 182 
votes. On the popular vote, Cleveland had a plu- 
rality of nearly 63,000 votes. 

This was probably the most exciting canvass in 
the history of American politics. Fiery enthusiasm 



252 



LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 



on both sides was everywhere displayed, and both 
parties indulged in the hottest kind of partisanship. 
The personal character of both the Presidential 




GENERAL BENJAMIN F. BUTEER. 

nominess were rancorously assailed. It was a veri- 
table campaign of mud. Blaine and Logan made 
tours around the country. Blaine was followed by re- 
porters and shadowed by detectives in the hope that 



CHESTER A. ARTHUR. 



253 



he might be betrayed into some expression that 
could be used against him or tortured into helping 
his opponents. He had almost got to the end, and 
would unquestionably have been elected, but for one 
miserable mishap — or, as was claimed, a trick that 
was sprung upon him on the Thursday preceding 
the election. 

Blaine was in New York, and among the many 
delegations visiting him was one of 300 ministers, 
who wished to show their confidence in his moral 
and intellectual fitness for the Chief Magistracy. 
The oldest of the ministers present was Mr. Burch- 
ard, and he was assigned to deliver the address. In 
closing it, he referred to what he thought ought to 
be a common opposition to "Rum, Romanism, and 
Rebellion" — an alliteration which not only awak- 
ened the wrath of the Democracy, but which quickly 
estranged many of the Irish-American supporters 
of Blaine and Logan. 

Blaine on the two following days tried to counteract 
the effects of an imprudence for which he was in no 
way responsible, but the alliteration was instantly 
and everywhere employed to revive religious issues 
and hatreds, and to such an extent that circulars 
were distributed at the doors of Catholic churches, 
implying that Blaine himself had used the offensive 
words. It was placarded all along the New York 
.State canals. A more unexpected blow was never 
known in our political history. It determined the 
result. It changed New York's 36 electoral votes 
and gave Cleveland the Presidency. 



254 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

GROVER CLEVELAND— 1^^-1889. 

Stephen Grover Cleveland, our twenty-sec- 
ond, and twenty-fourth President, was born in New 
Jersey, on March 18, 1837. His father was a Pres- 
byterian minister, who moved into New York when 
Grover was about three years old. The father died, 
leaving his widow with five children, and in poor 
circumstances. He first clerked in a store. In 1859 
he was admitted to the bar, and started practising in 
Buffalo. When the war broke out, it is said he 
desired ,to enlist, but he was dissuaded by the idea 
that some one should stay at home and look after 
the family. Two of his brothers went off to the 
front. He was drafted, but the State provided a 
substitute. From 1863 to 1866 he was Assistant Dis- 
trict Attorney for Erie County. He rose to be 
Sheriff, and subsequently Mayor of Buffalo. In 
1882, aided by a united party and the hearty support 
of the independent press of the State, he was elected 
Governor by a sweeping majority. His administra- 
tion of the office satisfied everybody. In 1884 he 
was the Democratic nominee for the Presidency, and 
after a most exciting canvass was elected, receiving 
219 electoral votes, while his opponent, Blaine, re- 
ceived but 182 votes. He was inaugurated March 
4, 1885, and served his term of four years. 

In 1888, Cleveland was unanimously renominated; 
but he was this time defeated by Benjamin Harrison. 
In 1892 he was again placed at the head of the Dem- 
ocratic ticket with President Harrison again his op- 
ponent; and, after a very close canvass, he was once 



G ROVER CLEVELAND. 255 

more elected; and once more, on March 4, 1893, he 
took the oath at Washington to u faithfully execute 
the office of President." 

In his first term, Thomas F. Bayard, of Delaware, 
was appointed Secretary of State; and Daniel Man- 
ning of New York was placed in charge of the Treas- 
ury. Manning was a very able man; he was greatly 
instrumental in securing the nomination for Cleve- 
land, and subsequently very active in electing him. 

This (1885-1889) was the first Democratic adminis- 
tration in 24 years. The politicians were naturally 
hungry for office, and raised the cry, "Turn the 
rascals out." The President ignored this clamor, 
and declared that "public office was a public 
trust," and in consequence there would be no whole- 
sale dismissals. This was not particularly cheering 
to the rank and file, who had walked the wilderness 
for a quarter of a century; and it was the occasion 
of widespread dissatisfaction within his party. 

The efforts of the first administration were directed 
towards appeasing civic wranglings and holding a 
close political alliance with the Civil Service re- 
formers, without disrupting the party by totally re- 
fusing to distribute the spoils of office. Things went 
along smoothly till the meeting of Congress in 1887, 
when, instead of the customary Message dealing 
with the foreign relations of the nation, Cleveland 
precipitated a surprising address on the Tariff ques- 
tion, dealing with our domestic affairs. This address 
was forced into such prominence in the ensuing 
Presidential campaign, that it became the single issue. 

The Democrats met in St. Louis, on June 5, 1888, 
and were in session three days. The President's last 



256 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

Message and the Mills Tariff Bill were endorsed. 
This result was not satisfying to the Protective 
Tariff Democrats, but they were without any coura- 
geous representation and the Platform was adopted 
with but one dissenting vote. Grover Cleveland was 
renominated by acclamation. The Vice-Presidential 
nomination went to Allen G. Thurman. 

The Republicans met at Chicago, on June 19, 
1888. Blaine was up in all the ballots, and it was 
within the power of his friends to nominate him : 
but his final refusal led them to vote for Benjamin 
Harrison of Indiana. Levi P. Morton, of New York, 
was nominated for Vice-President. The voting 
opened with 229 votes for John Sherman, of Ohio; 
W. Q. Gresham received in votes; Harrison re- 
ceived 80 votes 011 the first ballot, then rose to 298, 
and on the eighth ballot received 544 votes. 

The Republicans accepted in the plainest way the 
issues thus thrust upon the country by Cleveland's 
Message. Visiting delegates from both parties went 
through all the great States, enthusing their respec- 
tive partisans. 

The election resulted in Harrison receiving 233 
electoral votes. Cleveland got but 168 votes. Har- 
rison and Morton were therefore elected, and took 
their offices on March 4, 1889. 

During Cleveland's first term, four States were ad- 
mitted into the Union on February 22, 1889 : North 
Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington. 



[For the incidents surrounding the subsequent, or 1893 cam- 
paign, see under Harrison.] 



GROVER CLEVELAND. 



257 



Orover Cleveland was inaugurated as our twenty- 
fourth President on March 4, 1893. To n ^ s Cabinet 




GROVKR CI,KVET/A.ND. 



he called Walter Q. Gresham, of Illinois (a Repub- 
lican), as Secretary of State ; Senator John G. Car- 
lisle, of Kentucky, was placed at the head of the 
17 



258 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

Treasury Department. Richard S. Olney, of Massa- 
chusetts, was appointed Attorney-General. Gresham 
died in 1895, an d Olney was advanced to the office of 
Secretary of State. 

Cleveland's first act, on March 4, 1893, was to 
request the Senate to recall the Treaty of Annexa- 
tion with Hawaii — one of the last acts of the 
Harrison Administration, just before Cleveland's 
accession. On April 14, the American Protectorate 
established there was withdrawn by Commissioner 
Blount, who had gone there as the President's direct 
representative. Cleveland tried unsuccessfully to 
reinstate the dethroned Queen, but was thwarted by 
the Revolutionists, who would not have her. The 
Republic of Hawaii was proclaimed on July 4, 1893. 
On August 9, it was officially recognized by us. 

During Cleveland's second administration was cel- 
ebrated the 400th anniversary of the discovery of 
America by Columbus. A " Columbian " Exposi- 
tion was carried on in Chicago for six months, from 
May till November, 1893. It was the greatest ex- 
position ever held in the world. Its beauty was 
simply marvelous. The receipts for admission were 
nearly eleven millions of dollars, which will convey 
some impression of its magnitude, and of the furore 
it occasioned at home and abroad. The buildings 
cost nearly thirty millions of dollars; they were built 
on Lake Michigan and styled the "White City." 
The exposition was visited by nearly twenty-eight 
million people. 

On November 7, 1893, eleven States held elec- 
tions. The Democrats carried Virginia, Kentucky, 



GROVER CLEVELAND. 259 

and Maryland. The Republicans got the rebound 
of the " tidal wave," and polled surprisingly large 
majorities from the great manufacturing States of 
New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachu- 
setts; and from Ohio, Indiana, Nebraska and South 
Dakota. In other words, the Administration carried 
three States, with a voting representation of 417,267 
votes; while the Republicans carried eight States, 
represented by nearly 3,000,000 votes. 

William McKinley, the father of the " McKinley 
Tariff Bill," was elected Governor of Ohio by a very 
large majority over L- T. Neal, his Democratic op- 
ponent, and the author of the " Protection is a 
Fraud" plank in the 1892 Cleveland Platform. 

In the summer of 1893 a money panic was pro- 
voked by the banks who refused the customary dis- 
counting accommodations to the business commu- 
nity, no matter how financially stable they might have 
been. They attributed the "panic" to the "Silver 
Purchasing Act," and the President convened a 
special Congress to consider the crisis. After a long 
and acrimonious debate, in which all free coinage 
amendments were rejected, the Silver Repeal Act was 
passed, October 30, 1893, many Republicans voting 
with the Democrats. 

On December 19, 1893, a tariff bill known as the 
" Wilson Bill " was offered in the House. It was 
debated for 23 days, and passed February 1, 1894. 
It went to the Senate, where it was debated till July, 
and after numerous conferences and amendments 
was finally passed by a strict party vote, 182 being 



2 6o LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

for, and 106 against the measure. The House agreed 
to the bill on August 13, 1894. 

The bill was not satisfactory to the President, who 
insisted on free raw materials. He allowed it to 
become a law without his approval. 

An " Income Tax " provision was inserted in the 
bill at the President's suggestion. He claimed that 
it would be paid by millionaires without falling on 
any of them oppressively. The press rancorously 
assailed the constitutionality of the law. It struggled 
through the House, and won its way through a re- 
luctant Senate. It was voted for by 172 Democrats 
and 10 Populists. There were but 48 votes against 
it, these being mainly Republicans. The U. S. 
Supreme Court subsequently decided that the In- 
come Tax was unconstitutional, and it became in- 
operative. It was confidently expected by the 
President and his following that the bill would have 
been sustained by the court. Its being thrown out 
reduced the revenues of the Government more than 
30 millions of dollars ; and obliged the President to 
beg from Congress the authority to issue gold bonds 
— in other words — to borrow enough money to cover 
the deficiency forced upon the Government by the 
changed conditions of our tariff laws. 

In a nut-shell the case resolves itself to this: 
President Harrison in four years reduced the national 
debt $236,527,666; President Cleveland in three 
years increased the interest-bearing bonded debt 
$262,602,245. If the Wilson Tariff Bill as it first 
passed the House, where it met with the hearty 
approval of the President, had become law, the 



G ROVER CLEVELAND. 2 6l 

deficiency in revenue would have been much greater. 

An act enabling Utah to enter the Union was en- 
acted, and on January 4, 1896, she made the 45th 
State, and added another star to the national flag. 

The elections of November, 1894, resulted in great ' 
Republican victories. 21 States elected governors, 
and of these only three elected Democrats. The 
elections of 1895 resulted in even greater Republican 
victories. Elections were held in 12 States and all 
but one were carried by the Republicans, generally 
by large majorities. The solitary Democratic State 
was Mississippi. 

No great party was ever so sweepingly repudiated as 
the Democratic organization has been during the 
past three years. The elections of 1893, 1894, 1895, 
all showed that the country profoundly regretted the 
blunder of 1892. As Representative Cannon of Illi- 
nois succinctly put it, "Ever since the Democratic 
administration came into power there has been de- 
ficiency, distress, idleness, and panic." 

The Cuban Revolution began on February 20, 
1895, by uprisings in different parts of the island. 
It has continued with various results ever since. 
The previous uprising lasted from 1878 till 1888, 
when the Cubans surrendered upon promises from 
Spain of reforms that have never been accorded. 
The Senate and House passed resolutions favoring 
the recognition of belligerency, and calling upon the 
Executive to expostulate with Spain and prevent her 
treating her rebellious subjects as brigands or pirates. 
The President treated these resolutions as if they 
were a precipitate and perfunctory expression of 



262 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

ephemeral opinion ; and did everything in his power 
to aid Spain in maintaining her despotic and destruc- 
tive sovereignty over Cuba. 

The Venezuela case was originally a boundary 
question. Discoveries of gold in Venezuela and the 
growing importance of the Orinoco River, led the 
British to claim that the boundary of British Guiana 
extends to the Orinoco, and included these gold fields. 
Our Government recommended arbitration to set- 
tle the question; but Great Britain, having a bad 
case, refused to accede. When British subjects en- 
tered the disputed territory, they were arrested by 
the Venezuelans, and for this Great Britain demanded 
an indemnity. She threatened to seize a part of 
Venezuela to enforce her demands ; and the President 
surprised the public by nobly championing the cause 
of little Venezuela as against Great Britain, on the 
ground that our Monroe Doctrine would not allow 
us to entertain the idea of any foreign government 
possessing any portion of this continent — either by 
grab or purchase. Lord Salisbury refused peremp- 
torily to arbitrate the question, but six months later 
England accepted the solution proposed by the 
United States. 

The world was surprised at the unanimity with 
which the President's Venezuelan Message was en- 
dorsed by the people, who showed that they were 
strong, prepared, and thoroughly united. 

The Republicans met in St. Louis, on June 16, 
1896. Two days were spent in formulating the 
platform. Governor William McKinley, of Ohio, 
received on the first ballot 661 ]/ 2 votes, and was 



GROVER CLEVELAND. 263 

therefore nominated with an unanimity not expressed 
for any successful new candidate, with the exception 
of Fremont, the first Republican candidate in 1856, 
and Grant, the third, in 1868. They alone were 
nominated for a first term on the first ballot. Garret 
A. Hobart, of New Jersey, received the Vice-Presi- 
dential nomination. The platform was staunchly 
Republican. 

The Democratic Convention met at Chicago, July 
7, and on the 10th, it nominated, on the fifth ballot, 
William J. Bryan, of Nebraska, for President, and 
Arthur Sewall, of Maine, for the second place on 
the ticket. The Convention was under the full 
control of the Silverites, and they dominated its 
action. The sound money Democrats, as they styled 
themselves, openly revolted against silver, and de- 
manded a new ticket. Whitney and Hill and other 
prominent Democrats were pronounced m their 
hostilitv to the Chicago platform and ticket, and the 
Nczv York Sun came out distinctly for McKmley, 
advising all sound-money and other Democrats to so 
vote as the only means of defeating the Bryan pro- 
gramme, which it denounced as a compound of 
plunder, anarchy and repudiation. 
' The Cleveland administration felt exceedingly sore 
over the outcome. They objected to the "regular" 
nominee, and still could not persuade themselves to 
vote for McKinley, who was heraled as "the apostle 
of protection and the advance agent of prosperity. 
A third ticket was accordingly placed in the field on 
September 3, by the sound monev Democrats placing 
in Domination General John M. Palmer, of Illinois, 



264 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

and General Simon B. Buckner, of Kentucky. This 
alliance of the "blue and the gray" was intended to 
attract those Democrats who might, in the absence of 
the third ticket, vote for Bryan and Sewall. Cleveland 
endorsed this ticket and the u old" Democracy. 

The Populists nominated the Vice-President first, 
naming Thomas E. Watson, of Georgia; and then 
endorsed Bryan for the Presidency. Watson received 
52,000 votes, or 20,000 more than the Palmer ticket. 

The contest for the presidency was the most tre- 
mendous contest of years. The McKinleyites were 
supported by nearly all the most influential news- 
papers. They controlled an abundant campaign fund 
which was lavishly expended. The Bryanites had 
barely funds to meet necessary expenses. Bryan 
showed himself to be the strongest candidate his party 
could have chosen. He is a very able, determined, 
clear-headed man, of the golden age of 36, and in the 
future movements of his party he will have to be 
considered as a very important factor. Had the 
general election taken place in August, Bryan might 
possibly have been elected. Certainly there was 
more study of true politics in this country during the 
last half of 1896 than previously in thirty years. By 
October the pendulum of public opinion had swung 
back, and the feeling was that McKinley would be 
unquestionably elected, but by a slender majority. 

Great was the consternation of the Bryanites, and 
the jubilation of the Republicans, at the unprece- 
dented majorities rolled up for McKinley, whose 
election was secured by a plurality of over one mil- 
lion of the popular vote — the largest ever given. 



BENJAMIN HARRISON, 2 5~ 



BENJAMIN HARRISON— 1889-1893. 

Benjamin Harrison, our twenty-third President, 
was born in Ohio, August 20, 1833, and was one of a 
family of nine children. His father was a son of Presi- 
dent William Henry Harrison. Benjamin graduated 
from Miami University, Ohio, in 1852. He studied 
law and settled in Indianapolis, Indiana, to practise 
his profession in 1854. When the war broke out he 
raised a company of volunteers and was its second 
lieutenant, from which he rose to a Colonelcy. He 
served in the Atlanta campaigns under Sherman 
and distinguished himself at the battle of Resaca. 
He took part in the battle of Nashville under Gen- 
eral Thomas in 1864. In 1865 he was made a brevet- 
Brigadier-General. 

He took an active part in Grant's Presidential 
campaign in 1868 and again in 1872. In 1876 he ran 
for Governor of Indiana, but was defeated. He de- 
clined a Cabinet office under Garfield. He was 
elected to the U. S. Senate in 1880, but was defeated 
when he ran for re-election six years later. In 1888, 
he was the Republican nominee for the Presidency 
against Grover Cleveland, and was elected. He was 
sworn into office March 4, 1889. 

James G. Blaine was called to the Cabinet as Sec- 
retary of State ; and William Windom was made 
Secretary of the Treasury. Secretary Windom died 
January 29, 1891, and was followed in the office by 
Charles Foster, of Ohio. John Wanamaker, of 
Philadelphia, was Postmaster-General. 

In December^ 1889, the McKinley Tariff Bill was 



2 66 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

passed. Its main features were a large reduction 
in reveuues caused by a substantial removal of duties 
from raw sugar, a sy tern of bounties for sugar grown 
here, an increase of duty on many manufactured 
articles, and the adoption of a clause suggested by 
Blaine favoring reciprocity with other American 
Nations. Wyoming and Idaho were admitted as 
States. 

The Republicans met at Minneapolis, June 7, 
1892. Blaine had written the Chairman of the Con- 
vention that his name would not be presented as a 
candidate. Harrison's re-nomination was opposed by 
the political leaders in New York, Pennsylvania, 
Ohio, Iowa, Louisiana, Colorado, Oregon, and Mis- 
souri, who agreed to present and support Blaine, 
feeling satisfied he would accept if his nomination 
was plainly for the good of the party. The feeling 
against u boss " rule, as it was styled, prevented 
Blaine's nomination. McKinley, the father of the 
1890 Tariff bill, was suggested, but he voted for 
Harrison and resisted the proposed stampede in his 
favor. Thereupon Harrison was re-nominated, re- 
ceiving 535 votes to 182 each for both McKinley 
and Blaine. Whitelaw Reid, of New York, was 
placed on the ticket for the Vice-Presidency, in the 
place of Levi P. Morton. 

The Democrats met at Chicago, June 21, 1892. 
Cleveland was the avowed nominee. He was op- 
posed by Senator David B. Hill and the whole 
power of Tammany Hall in New York City, who 
repeatedly declared that he could not carry his own 
State. Balloting was reached on the 23d, at four 
o'clock in the morning, the Cleveland leaders, under 



BENJAMIN HARRISON, 



267 



W. C. Whitney, doing this to prevent combinations 
by the opposition. Cleveland received 617 votes ; 




BENJAMIN HARRISON. 



David B. Hill, 115 ; Governor Boies, of Iowa, 103; 

with 75 scattering. Cleveland was thereupon unani- 



2 68 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

mously renominated. Adlai E. Stevenson, of Illi- 
nois, was nominated for the Vice-Presidency on the 
first ballot. 

A notable scene in the convention was created 
when a radical free- trade plank was moved as a sub- 
stitute for the more moderate utterances of the 
platform. The substitute denounced the protective 
tariff as a fraud. It was reported that the substitute 
was prepared by the Anti-Cleveland leaders. The 
result of the vote was 564 for the substitute, and 314 
against it. 

The campaign was run on about the same general 
issues as in 1888. Harrison, however, was consid- 
erably weakened by the substitution of Reid for 
Vice-President, in place of Morton. Reid was stren- 
uously objected to by all the labor-unions in the 
country. His candidacy cost Harrison the vote of 
New York, and thereby a re-election. He had car- 
ried the State in 1889 by 14,000 plurality. 

Cleveland and Stevenson received 277 electoral 
votes, and Harrison and Reid but 145. On the popular 
vote, Cleveland received 98,017 more than Harrison. 

Ex-President Hayes and James G. Blaine died in 
January, 1893. 

In Hawaii, the queen was dethroned by the revo- 
lutionists, and on February 1st Minister Stevens 
raised the United States flag at Honolulu, landed the 
U. S. marines, and established a protectorate. A 
treaty of annexation to the United States was about 
to be signed, but the President thought it a matter 
of courtesy to hold over all further proceedings for 
action by his successor. A bad thing, as it turned 



BENJAMIN HARRISON. 2 6g 

out, for Cleveland tried in every conceivable way to 
recognize the monarchy, and reinstate the deposed 
queen. 

Although General Harrison's term was distin- 
guished by no very remarkable events, yet a large 
number of useful measures were adopted, and a 
model of executive administration was presented. 
There was vigilance in the execution of the law by 
all its officers and guardians. There was no waste ; 
no stealing ; no defalcations, and there was no rings 
nor jobs. There was probity and integrity in office ; 
there was no purchasing of 'votes or corrupt means 
practised to influence legislation ; there was public 
and private virtue; at the courts of foreign nations 
we were represented by men of experience, learning 
and ability. 

On the inauguration of Cleveland and Stevenson, 
General Harrison returned to Indianapolis, Indiana, 
and resumed the practice of the law. 

The national debt was reduced during this admin- 
istration $236,527,666; a very repectable showing. 

[The more important of the measures of the second Cleveland 
Administration will be found in the preceding pagts under 
Cleveland.] 



WILLIAM McKINLEY— 1897-1901. 

William McKinley, our twenty -fifth President, was 
born at Niles, Ohio, on January, 29, 1843. He was 
educated at the public schools ; enlisted in an Ohio 
regiment, at the age of eighteen, and served through 



270 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

the Civil War, attaining the rank of Captain and 
Brevet-Major. He was admitted to the bar in 1867 ; 
served as a member of Congress from 1887 to 1891, 
when he was jerrymandered out of his seat; he was 
Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, 
which framed the tariff of 1890 — known as the 
McKinley Bill. He was elected Governor of Ohio 
in 1 89 1, and again in 1893. He has now reached 
the highest office in the gift of the people. 

Governor McKinley was duly inaugurated Presi- 
dent ; layman J. Gage, a banker in Chicago, was 
placed in charge of the Treasury Department ; Russell 
A. Alger, of Michigan, was made Secretary of War ; 
John D. Long, of Massachusetts, was placed at the 
head of the Navy ; Joseph McKenna, of California, 
was made Attorney General, but was subsequently 
elevated to the United States Supreme Court, and 
John W. Griggs, of New Jersey, was appointed in his 
stead. Senator John Sherman, of Ohio was made 
Secretary of State. He retired in April, 1898, and 
his office was turned over to William R. Day, of 
Ohio, who had served as Assistant Secretary. He was 
appointed one of the Spanish Peace Commissioners, 
and the office was conferred on John Hay, another 
Ohioan, who had been Minister at London. 

Repeated efforts had been made by Congress during 
the Cleveland administration to recognize the 'bellig- 
erency of the Cubans in the war with Spain. These 
efforts were all quietly ignored by the president and 
his secretary (Olney). Reports continued to reach us 
of the heart-sickening condition of the starving 
people whom Weyler, the Spanish general, had 



WILLIAM Mc KIN LEY. 



271 



driven from their farm homes into the cities, where 
there was no employment for them, no provision 
made for their maintenance in this barbaric captivity. 
These forced the Cuban situation upon the consciences 
of all true Americans. Its immediate effect was fol- 




WIIXIAM MCKINLEY. 



lowed by an exchange of notes between our govern- 
ment and Spain, followed by Spain's offer of auton- 
omy, and more liberty to Cuba than that government 
ever before granted to any of its dependencies. Au- 
tonomy was repudiated by the Cubans, who declared, 
" We are fighting for liberty ; not for reforms." 



272 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

These promised reforms were intended simply to 
delude for a time the people of the United States. 
The scheme was an extremely adroit one, and noth- 
ing more shamelessly mendacious was ever attempted. 
McKinley was surrounded by advocates of peace who 
had been opposing the war on constitutional, philan- 
thropic, or religious grounds. He wished to avoid 
war, and was imposed upon by these stratagems, until 
an intercepted or stolen letter from the Spanish 
minister to a friend in Havana betrayed the fact that 
Spain was simply jollying this country, and figuring 
for delay. De Lome in this letter characterized the 
president as a " low politician," and expressed the 
belief that he " could manipulate things in Washing- 
ton to suit the exigencies of Spain." Our govern- 
ment demanded his instant recall. 

The Spanish government exhausted all the arts of 
diplomacy in figuring for delay. The Pope and the 
European powers were influenced to intervene. How- 
ever much they sympathized with Spain, they were 
arrested by prudential considerations from interfering. 
England, contrary to her old-time attitude, showed 
herself decidedly friendly throughout, and there was 
a strong suspicion that some secret agreement had 
been reached between the two nations. 

Fitzhugh Lee had been to Havana as Consul 
General, and Murat Halstead, a well-known and 
trained journalist went there in a semi-official capa- 
city. Later on Senator Proctor, of Vermont visited 
the island. They all denounced Spanish misrule 
there as worse than anything they had ever known 
about. Cuba had been reduced by Spanish atrocity 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 



273 



from a land of plenty to a howling wilderness. The 
Spaniards had sent across the Atlantic more than 
200,000 of their sons to fight against Cuban rebels, 
and more than half of these were killed or hopelessly 
disabled. Cuba on her part seems to have lost nearly 
half the population of the island. 

McKinley proffered upon purely humanitarian 
grounds to relieve the starving reconcentrados in Cuba, 
but this was not kindly received by public opinion in 
Spain, and was resented by 
the Spanish government on 
the ground that it was the 
entering wedge for Ameri- 
can intervention. 

To establish a feeling of 
fairness and friendliness be- 
tween the two nations an 
interchange of naval visits 
was suggested. The an- 
nouncement was received 
by the Spanish government 
with apparent pleasure, and 

the battleship " Maine " was ordered to call at the 
port of Havana, and was taken and moored by the 
government pilot to an anchorage assigned by the 
authorities ; the harbor being for a good while under 
absolute military control. 

The " Maine " with her officers and crew numbered 
about 400. She reached Havana on January 20th, 
1898, and on the evening of February 15th she was 
destroyed by an explosion, and 260 of her crew lost 
their lives. This appalling calamity created intense 
18 




ADMIRAL DEWEY. 



274 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

excitement, but through it all our government kept 
cool. A Naval Court of Inquiry into the cause of the 
explosion was at once organized. This Court pro- 
ceeded to make a thorough investigation on the spot, 
employing for the purpose a strong force of expert 
divers and wreckers. After a continuous labor for 
twenty-three days the Court reached the somewhat 
indefinite conclusion: "that the loss of the 'Maine' 
was not in any respect due to fault or negligence on 
the part of officers or crew * * * the vessel was 
destroyed by the explosion of a submarine mine 
situated under the bottom of the ship." The Court 
was unable to Obtain evidence affixing the respon- 
sibility " on any person or persons." 

The Spanish regarded the presence of the "Maine" 
at Havana as a menace to Spanish sovereignty on the 
island, and as an encouragement to the insurgents. 
The Spanish government asserted that the destruction 
of the vessel was an accident, due to our own care- 
lessness or negligence, repudiated the findings of our 
Court of Inquiry, and insisted there was no external 
explosion, and no Spanish complicity. 

By a singular coincidence, as a return of courtesy, 
the " Viscaya," a very large and heavily-armored 
cruiser, equipped with the largest guns used in the 
Spanish navy, arrived in the port of New York. 
Her captain had no knowledge of the accident (?) to 
the u Maine." There was an all-around feeling of 
uneasiness, and her stay was necessarily a short one. 

There was a wide-spread belief that the vessel was 
destroyed by treachery. This was subsequently 
strengthened, when the maker of the mines (an 



WILLIAM Mc KIN LEY. 



275 



Englishman, who sent them to Havana) declared that 
they could only be exploded through the connivance 
of the officers who had them in charge. All the evi- 
dence showed that the destruction of the "Maine" 
was no ordinary accident, but was due to external 
agency and hostile intent, and this formed into 




THE OREGON. 

quicker fire the glowing coals of righteous wrath, 
and humanitarian zeal. 

Cuban Intervention Resolutions were at once 
passed by Congress. The Spanish Minister demanded 
his passports, and left for Canada. An ultimatum 
embracing these Congressional provisions was for- 
warded to the Spanish government at Madrid, and 



276 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

next day Spain gave our Minister (Woodward) his 
passports, thereby severing all diplomatic relations 
between the two governments. 

A fleet was now assembled at Key West. Fifty 
millions of dollars were voted by Congress as an Emer- 
gency Appropriation to be expended according to the 
President's discretion. Advances of money were 
made, and scores of private steam yachts of great 
size and strength were offered to the government by 
our wealthy citizens. Cuba was now blockaded, many 
vessels were captured, and several effective bombard- 
ments were made on the coast. 

The President called for 125,000 volunteers, appor- 
tioned through the several States. These responded 
with cheerfulness and alacrity. On April 25th a state 
of war was declared to exist, and our Asiatic Squad- 
ron under command of Commodore Dewey was 
ordered from Hong Kong to the Philippines, with 
instructions to " Capture or destroy the Spanish 
squadron." 

Dewey forced an entrance to Manila Bay on the 
night of April 30th, and early on the following morn- 
ing engaged the Spanish fleet which was then under 
the command of Admiral Montojo. When the battle 
was over the enemy's fleet had been entirely wiped 
out, while Dewey's ships had scarcely a scratch. 
Thirteen vessels were sunk, captured, or burned ; 
three batteries were silenced and destroyed, and a 
blockade of Manila was established. 

This is the most remarkable naval victory on 
record. Our men went into action with the watch- 
word, " Remember the Maine," and five times they 



WILLIAM McKINLEY. 



277 




ADMIRAL SAMPSON. 



ran along the Spanish line of 
warships. Not a man on our 
side was killed, and only 
eight were injured. Com- 
modore Dewey proved him- 
self a daring and courageous 
officer. He received the 
thanks of Congress, and was 
raised to the rank of Rear- 
Admiral for this grand vic- 
tory at Cavite. 

A subsequent call was is- 
sued for 75,000 additional men. Twenty thousand 
of these were despatched to take possession of the 
Philippines, where General Wesley Merritt was ap- 
pointed Military Governor. 

For several weeks our fleet under Admiral Samp- 
son and Commodore Schley scoured the ocean, seek- 
ing a Spanish squadron that had been sent from 
Spain under the command of Admiral Cervera, to 

succor the Spaniards in 
Cuba, and to attack cur 
coasts. They, it appears, 
were short of coal and were 
hunting at different points 
for it ; hence their ma- 
noeuvres were veiled in mys- 
Ltery. For a long time they 
evaded our ships, whose or- 
^^ ders were to " Pursue and 

■?^ : ^aL^ir,-;:-lH utterly destroy the Spanish 
commodore scHi.Ey. fleet." On May 19th Cer- 




278 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

vera with his six ships stole into Santiago de 
Cuba. Schley reported the fleet is bottled up in San- 
tiago. " I have got them, and they will never get 
home." A prediction that was subsequently fulfilled. 
Santiago harbor had been mined, and there was 
danger that any vessel forcing an entrance would 
meet the fate of the " Maine." Lieutenant Hobson 
conceived the idea of blocking the channel by sink- 
ing a vessel across its mouth, thereby preventing any 
egress of the Spanish ships. He, with seven men 
ran the collier „ — ^ " Merrimac " into 

the harbor and / sunk her in the 

channel, under the 60*'% fire of the Spanish 

forts. Hobson and his men were 

taken prisoners. 




It was a daring I '" -jSS ^l. exploit, maturely 
planned and ^n i^ bravely and bril- 
liantly executed. The cool measur- 
ing of danger, V. joined with proud 
contempt of it; the importance of the 
end aimed at, and ,„,"„"„„ the complete suc- 

Vt, t,' -U -4. WEUT. HOBSON. ? 

cess with which it was attained ; the 

calm ignoring of the terrible risks run, and the 
entire self-effacement of the young officer and his 
heroic crew make Lieutenant Hobson's deed one of 
the most notable in naval annals. The lofty personal 
bravery of the men woke the admiration of the 
Spanish Admiral. He did the handsome thing in 
at once sending out word that our heroes were unin- 
jured, and that he would be glad to restore such 
brave men to their fleet by exchange. 

On June 15th our army sailed for Santiago. General 



WILLIAM Mc KIN LEY. 379 

Shatter took 16,000 men by transports over more 
than a thousand miles of ocean ; landed on a rough 
coast in the face of an enemy ; inarched and fought 
through a tropical jungle thick with hidden foes for 
days ; drove a superior force from entrenched posi- 
tions on high hills. 

Ten days later Cervera was driven out from San- 
tiago. Next day Shafter received the surrender of an 
army of 18,000 men holding a fortified town. Our 
loss was less than 250 men. 





GENERAL MII.ES. GENERAL SHAFTER. 

On July 3d, Cervera, acting under orders from 
General Blanco in Havana, made a gallant dash for 
liberty. He steamed out with his six fast war ships, 
and undertook to run away from our fleet. Sampson 
was away at the time, but Schley who was in com- 
mand, chased the Spanish ships, fighting them as 
they ran, until the entire fleet was sunk — four of 
them being total wrecks. Cervera was taken prisoner, 
with 1,700 other Spaniards. This gallant action 
practically wiped out the Spanish navy, 



2 8o LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

On July 25th our forces landed at Porto Rico. 
Three days later Ponce, the largest city there, sur- 
rendered to General Miles, and he was received with 
joyful acclamations. 

Spain, through the French Ambassador now sug- 
gested peace. We went reluctantly into the war and 
were prepared to make peace any time. The Presi- 
dent demanded the independence of Cuba, the cession 
of Porto Rico, and one of the Iyadrones to the United 
States, and the retention of Manila, pending the final 
disposition of the Philippines by a joint commission. 
The demands were acceded to, and the horrible 
tyranny that was clouding the fairest portions of the 
earth for three hundred years is brought to an end. 
With the loss of her naval power and of her colonial 
empire Spain drops from the ranks of the first-class 
powers of the world. 

Protocols agreeing as to the preliminaries for a 
treaty of peace were signed on August 12, 1898. Our 
naval and military commanders were ordered to cease 
hostilities. The blockades of Cuba, Porto Rico and 
Manila were lifted, and the war was ended. A new 
chapter of National history, of world history, is 
opened before us. 

The war opened the door of annexation to Hawaii. 
President McKinley signed resolutions passed by the 
Senate annexing the Hawaiian Islands to the United 
States, and the " Philadelphia " was ordered to Hono- 
lulu to raise the American flag, which had been 
hauled down under Cleveland's direction in 1893. 



TABLE OF THE PRESIDENTS. 



28l 



> t-J 

pq W 



(V 

O t/3 •- 

Ml 

o^ g 
£toP4 



o .,-; 









2 2 

O (J 



o o 



o o 



O 



w <r. en co to tn 

as 5 5 5 rt 03 

5 22222 



7~! 



M K X 

_ 2 "3 'G '3 fl c p 1 p 1 p 1 p , p 1 o 1 f~j 



O 03 

2 ° 

3 ° 
aS 

<U <L> 



t^ • CT\ t^ 10 



•-. m — 00 



On I p-i ON I O I tJ 
00 n O h 10 r< nx 

N OX 00 00 <N CO t^M 

Mt^MMMCO^CO 



S £ g s s 



PPS§ 



o<ijOOOa;0<ua) 
HOHHHOHOO 



en • • . 

a co .c +-> 

*3g£ 
-<£ *x 

«s a c rt 

CC ctj oj 

<D 0) ty CD 



tn m c\fD 



°2 CO >,J3 00 On 
T 1 CO 03 +- 1 00 00 



1 [ 


P 


rO N 




IO LO 




co co 


1 — | 










... . , 


03 


s £ 


£ 


i- In 


In 


CD CD 


U 



^ 5 V 



I 

On 
Oil* 

r- IO ON M 

r^ 1-1 C CO GO • - 
w 00 _, ,_O0 00 ^-s 

-ri tn .- St! <* 



B^NIO 



sga 

sn OJ Jn 



s « h 



s « a 



roO 



""^ i^i C S 



COO 



8 o oj 2 

>^ £ C S 
co£"< O VO 



£ « « 5 

(L» <L) 1) 0) 

r-,0 



.2 -a 

.5 * 

»-" Oj 



£ cd^ 



o3 o3 o3 ,3 

S 'S "3 y 



cjo cjo be in 



a 

a 



« efl 



en .^3 

U B k. 



S cu-~ ^ ^ co 1 



o o 



«£ 



* .2 £> a -a ^ ^ o 

<L) Si -S a) O <L> <L> oj 



s c s c .2 .2 £ 



> g > > > § H £ Q>Hh4^^^ 



_ ;s ^ ^3 <u <u 



^.2 
^O 



H S ^ 

fe o P J A « ffi 



53 at o-dii 









a^^eg a "^<2<P a - 5U s 

bi;^ § « « °* p .S 3 ^ « ol"? 3 « J cu $ w « ii fc g S3 S 

V, rn P CU V 1-1 Jj -M "r^ - -1 ^^2 C3 ^ Oi_h CO-G ^ ^ > -'->^'rP 

/-s ^- /-\ ^h r^ — rri L- ' ^ •-< -h '— * * — ' ^ h ■ •r-i /■* _i_j r-t n ) rs r- d ! 






f) f^l- io^O r^co ^ O 



J 



2 82 TABLE OF ADMISSION OF STATES. 

i Delaware accepted the Constitution Dec. 

2 Pennsylvania " " . .. Dec. 

3 New Jersey " " Dec. 

4 Georgia ' 5< " " Jan. 

5 Connecticut " " " Jan. 

6 Massachusetts " " " Feb. 

7 Maryland " " " Apr. 

8 South Carolina " " " May 

9 New Hampshire " " June 

io Virginia " " " June 

ii New York " " " July 

12 North Carolina " " " Nov. 

13 Rhode Island " " " May 

14 Vermont admitted to the Union Mar. 

15 Kentucky " " " June 

16 Tennessee " " " June 

17 Ohio " " " Nov. 

18 Louisiana " " " Apr. 

19 Indiana " " " Dec. 

20 Mississippi " " " Dec. 

21 Illinois " " " Dec. 

22 Alabama " " " Dec. 

23 Maine " " " Mar. 

24 Missouri " " " Aug. 

25 Arkansas " " " June 

26 Michigan " " " Jan. 

27 Florida " " " Mar. 

28 Texas " " " Dec. 

29 Iowa " " " Dec. 

30 Wisconsin " " " May 

31 California " " " Sept. 

32 Minnesota " " " . May 

33 Oregon " " " Feb. 

34 Kansas " " " Jan. 

35 West Virginia " " " June 

36 Nevada " " " Oct. 

37 Nebraska " " " Mar. 

38 Colorado " " " Aug. 

39 North Dakota '* " " Feb. 

40 South Dakota " " " Feb. 

41 Montana ;i <4 Feb. 

42 Washington " " " Feb. 

43 Idaho " " " July 

44 Wyoming " " li July 

45 Utah * « " .-Jan, 



7, 


1787 


12, 


1787 


18, 


1787 


2, 


1788 


9- 


1788 


6, 


1788 


28, 


1788 


23. 


1788 


21, 


1788 


25, 


1788 


26, 


1788 


21, 


1789 


29, 


1790 


4, 


1791 


1. 


1792 


1, 


179O 


29, 


1802 


3o, 


1812 


I i-i 


1816 


10, 


1817 


^ 


1818 


14, 


1819 


15, 


1820 


10, 


1S21 


15, 


1S36 


26, 


1837 


3. 


1845 


29, 


1845 


28, 


1846 


29, 


1848 


9, 


1850 


u, 


1858 


14, 


i859 


29, 


1861 


19, 


1863 


31, 


1864 


i, 


1867 


1, 


1876 


22, 


1889 


22, 


1889 


22, 


1889 


22, 


1889 


3, 


1890 


1 1, 


1^90 


4, 


1^96 



ALTEMUS' YOUNQ PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 



ROBINSON CRUSOE: His Life and Strange, Sur- 
prising Adventures. With 70 beautiful illustrations 
by Walter Paget. 

" Was there ever anything written that the reader wished longer ex- 
cept RoeiNSON Crusoe and Pilgrim's Progress ? "Samuel Johnson. 

" There exists no work, either of instruction or entertainment, which 
aas been more generally read, and universally admired." — Walter Scott. 

ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. 

With 42 illustrations by John Tenniel. 
" Lewis Carroll's immortal story." — Athenaeum. 
•'The most delightful of children's storie*. Elegant and delicious 
nonsense." — Saturday Review. 

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS AND WHAT 

ALICE FOUND THERE. (A companion to Alicb 
in Wonderland.) With 50 illustrations by John 
Tenniel. 

"Will fairly rank with the tale of her previous experience."— Daily 
Telegraph. . . . "Many of Tenniel' s designs are masterpieces of wise 
absurdity." — Athen&um. . . . "Not a whit inferior to its predecessor 
in grand extravagance of imagination, a.xv\ delicious allegorical non- 
sense." — Quarterly Review. 

BUNYAN'S PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. With 50 full- 
page and text illustrations. 
Pilgrim's Progress is the most popular story book In the world. 
With the exception of the Bible it has been translated into more lan- 
guages than any other book ever printed. 

A CHILD'S STORY OF THE BIBLE. With 72 full- 

page illustrations. 
Tells in simple language and in a form fitted for the hands of the 
younger members of the Christian flock, the tale of God's dealings with 
his Chosen People under the Old Dispensation, with its foreshadowings 
of the coming of that Messiah who was to make all mankind one fold 
jnler one Shepherd. 

A CHILD'S LIFE OF CHRIST. With 49 illustrations. 

God has implanted in the infant heart a desire to hear of Jesus, and 
children are early attracted and sweetly riveted by the wonderful Story 
of the Master from the Manger to the Throne. 

In this little book we have brought together from Scripture every in- 
cident, expression and description, within the verge of their comprehen- 
sion in the effort to weave them into a memorial garland of their Saviour. 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS AND THE DISCOV- 
ERY OF AMERICA. With 70 illustrations. 

It is the duty of every American lad to know the story of Christopher 
Columbus. In this book is depicted the story of his life and struggles ; 
of his persistent solicitations at the Courts of Europe, and his contemptu- 
ous receptions by the learned Geographical Councils, until his final em- 
Eloyment by Queen Isabella. Eecords the day-by-day journeyings while 
e was pursuing his aim and perilous way over the shoreless Ocean, until 
he " gave to Spain a New World." Shows his progress through Spain on 
the occasion of his first return, when he was received with rapturous 
demonstrations and more than regal homage. His displacement by the 
Odjeas, Ovandos and Bobadilas; his last return in chains, and the story 
of his death in poverty and neglect. 

One distinguishing feature of this edition is, that many of the illus- 
trations are copies from DeBry'sand Herrara's histories, which were com- 
Eiled by authority of the King of Spain, showing the Indians, in their 
fe and customs, as they appeared to the early discoverers. 

LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED 

STATES. Compiled from authoritative sources. With 
portraits of the Presidents; and also of the unsuccessful 
candidates for the office ; as well as the ablest of the 
Cabinet officers. 
This book should be in every home and school library. It tells, in an 

Impartial way. the story of the political history of the United States, from 

the first Constitutional convention till the last Presidential nominations. 

it is just the book for intelligent boys, and it will help to make them 

intelligent and patriotic citizens. 

GULLIVER'S TRAVELS INTO SOME REMOTE 

REGIONS OF THE WORLD. With 50 illustra- 
tions. ^ 
In description, even of the most common-place things, his power Is 
often perfectly marvellous. Macaulay says of Swift : " Under a plain 
garb and ungainly deportment were concealed some of the choicest gifts 
that ever have been bestowed on any of the children of men,— rare 
powers of observation, brilliant art, grotesque invention, humor of the 
most austere flavor, yet exquisitely delicious, eloquence singularly pure, 
manly, and perspicuous." 

MOTHER GOOSE'S RHYMES, JINGLES, AND 

FAIRY TALES. With 300 illustrations. 
"In this edition an excellent choice has been made from the standard 
fiction of the little ones. The abundant pictures are well drawn and 
graceful, the elfect frequently striking and always decorative."— Critic 
. . . "Only to see the book is to wish to give it to every child one 
knows." — Queen. 

THE FABLES OF iESOP. Compiled from the best 
accepted sources. With 62 illustrations. 
The fables of .ffCsop are among the very earliest compositions of this 
kind, and probably have never been surpassed for point and brevity, as 



*ell as for vne practical good sense tney display. In their grotesque 
grace in their quaint humor, in their trust in the simpler virtues, 
in their insight into the cruder vices, in their innocence of the fact 
of sex, jEsop's Fables are as little children— and for that reason 
they will ever find a home in the heaven of little children's souls. 

THE STORY OF ADVENTURE IN THE FROZEN 

SEAS. With 70 illustrations. Compiled from author- 
ized souroes. 

We have here brought together the records of the attempts to reac^ 
the North Pole. Our object being to recall the stories of the early voy- 
agers and to narrate the recent efforts of gallant adventurers of various 
nationalities to cross the "unknown and inaccessible" threshold; and 
to show how much can be accomplished by indomitable pluck and steady 
perseverance. Portraits and numerous illustrations help the narration. 

The North Polar region is the largest, as it is the most important field 
of discovery that remains for this generation to work out. As Frobishcr 
declared nearly three hundred and fifty years ago, it is "the only great 
thine left undone in the world." Every year diminishes the extent of 
the unknown ; and there is abare likelhV d that Dr. Nansen has already 
explored the hitherto unexplorable. 

THE STORY OF EXPLORATION AND DIS- 
COVERY IN AFRICA. With 80 illustrations. 

Records the experiences of adventures, privations, sufferings, trials, 
dangers and discoveries in developing the " Dark Continent," from the 
early days of Bruce and Mungo Park down to Livingstone & n .d Stanley 
and the heroes of our own times. 

The reader becomes carried away by conflicting emotions of wonder 
and sympathy, and feels compelled to pursue the story, whicn he cannot 
lay down. No present can be more acceptable than such a volume as this, 
where courage, intrepidity, resource and devotion are so pleasantly 
mingled. It is very fully illustrated with pictures worthy of the book. 

THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON, or the Adven- 
tures of a Shipwrecked Family on an Uninhab- 
ited Island. With 50 illustrations. 

A remarkable tale of adventure that will interest the boys and girls. 
The father of the family tells the tale and the vicissitudes througli 
which he and his wife and children pass, the wonderful discoveries they 
make, and the dangers they encounter. It is a standard work of au ven- 
ture that has the favor of all who have read it. 

THE ARABIAN NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENTS. 

With 50 illustrations. Contains the most favorably 

known of the stories. 
The text is somewhat abridged and edited for the young. It forms an 
excellent introduction to those immortal tales which have helped so 
long to keep the weary world young. 



ILLUSTRATED NATURAL HISTORY. By the Rev. 
J. G. Wood. With 80 illustrations. 
Wood's Natural History needs no commendation. Its author has 
done more than any other writer to popularize the study. His work is 
known and admired over all the civilized world. The sales of his works 
in England and America have been enormous. The illustrations in this 
edition are entirely new, striking, and life-like. 

A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By Charles 
Dickens. With 50 illustrations. 
Dickens grew tired of listening to his children memorizing the old- 
fashioned twaddle that went under the name of English history. He 
thereupon wrote a book, in his own peculiarly happy style, primarily 
for the educational advantage of his own children, but was prevailed upon 
to publish the work, and make its use general. Its success was instanta* 
neous and abiding. 

BLACK BEAUTY ; The Autobiography of a Horse. 

By Anna Sewell. With 50 illustrations. 

This new illustrated edition is sure to command attention. Wher- 
ever children are, whether boys or girls, there this Autobiography should 
be. It inculcates habits of kindness to all members of the animal crea- 
tion. The literary merit of the book is excellent. 

GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES. With 50 Illustrations. 

These Tales of the Brothers Grimm have carried their names into 
every household of the civilized world. 

The Tales are a wonderful collection, as interesting, from a literary 
point of view, as they are delightful as stories. 

ANDERSEN'S FAIRY TALES. By Hans Christian 
Andersen. With 77 illustrations. 
The spirit of high moral teaching, and the delicacy of sentiment, feel- 
ing, and expression that pervade these tales make these wonderful crea- 
tions not only attractive to the young, but equally acceptable to those of 
mature years, who are able to understand their real significance and ap- 
preciate the depth of their meaning. 

FLOWER FABLES. By Louisa May Alcott. With 
colored and plain illustrations. 
A series of very interesting fairy tales by the most charming of Amer- 
ican story-tellers. 

GRANDFATHER'S CHAIR : A History for Youth. 
By Nathaniel Hawthorne. With 60 illustrations. 

The story of America from the landing of the Puritans to the acknowl- 
edgment without reserve of the Independence of the United States, 
told with all the elegance, simplicity, grace, clearness, and force for 
which Hawthorne is conspicuously noted. 



